


Tie Me Down Or I Will Run (Tie Me Down And I Will Run)

by skyline



Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Hunger Games AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:18:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kendall volunteers as a Tribute for the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games to save his baby sister, Katie. He's not too keen on the idea of dying. He is very, very keen on all the pre-game sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Woods

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a joke. On ffn, a very nice author is writing a BTR/Hunger Games crossover. And it's lovely. Really. I do not want to imply that it isn't. But. Well. After reading it I kind of looked around and said, cool casting bro, but if you're going to rewrite THG, it should be like this. And then as a joke, I started revising the fic and texting it to breila-rose and jblostfan16. Originally it was a semi-serious revision that was going to taper off as I got bored. Then I had this awesome idea, which Courtney later summed up nicely (thus she is quoted in the summary): sex. Why not have the boys fuck everywhere? So. Uh. Yeah. This happened. And then jblostfan16 so very nicely compiled it into a word doc and edited and told me to post this shit. So I am. This is still, basically cracky text fic. It just has the added bonus of, well, chapters.

Kendall wakes up to screaming.

There is always screaming. It doesn't matter whether he is awake or asleep; he is always haunted by the desperate shrill of someone else's voice. He's on his feet in seconds, smoothing his hand over Katie's hair. 

"Hey, shhh, it's okay. Everything is fine. It was just a nightmare." 

She sobs into his shirt, equal parts fear and frustration. Katie likes to pretend she's invincible. She hates it when the illusion is broken. 

"Its okay," Kendall repeats. "Everything is okay." 

He hugs her to his chest, drowning out her frantic whispering. Their mother sleeps like the dead, but Katie's screams could easily wake skeletons. Now they are trying to make up for it, like hushed voices will remedy the broken silence. Still, Kendall can make out Katie's words. "I saw it, Kendall. I saw the mines, and dad, and-" 

"It was just a dream." 

"But-" 

Kendall hums into her hair, and she bites off her words. The tune is familiar, comforting, old. One of those mountain songs they've passed down for generations. Their dad taught it to them. "Go back to sleep. No school today." 

"Stay with me?" Katie pleads, burrowing her head into Kendall's shirt. 

"You know I can't." He pauses, and then says, "Why don't you crawl in with mom? She won't mind." 

Kendall will try not to mind either. He cannot forgive his mother for a lot of things, but Katie shouldn't have to suffer for it. She does not need to bear the weight of Kendall's grudge. Her interminable pride is a heavy enough burden. 

"I'm too old for that," Katie says disdainfully. 

She has a point. Old enough to apply for tesserae is old enough to sleep alone, but Kendall wants her to hang onto her childhood a little bit longer. 

"Please?" 

There is a broken edge to the plea, dangerously close to begging. He won't be able to concentrate on the hunt if his mind is here, with Katie and her screams. He cannot afford to lose focus today. Katie relents, reluctantly detaching herself from Kendall and curling into their mother's side. Kendall only allows himself a moment to watch the way his mother's thin arm wraps around Katie's shoulders, to listen to the ragged sniffle Katie lets loose into a mothbitten pillow. 

He tiptoes out of the house as dawn breaks on the horizon, sending shattered beams of orange gold light in every direction. 

The streets are empty. 

No miners trekking to work. No peacekeepers trying to keep up a pretense of civic duty. There is only the kind of silence that makes every rustle of Kendall's leather game bag sound too loud, birds chirping, and the slow crunch of gravel beneath his feet. The Seam is still sleeping, allowed a holiday for once in their wretched existence. It's quiet enough that Kendall doesn't even have to pause to listen for the hum of the electric fence in the meadow. He does anyway, one ear cocked to the wind lest he become fried Kendall. 

Electrocution would save him the trouble of putting on his dress-clothes like a lamb preparing for slaughter. Kendall can feel hysteria bubbling in his throat, trying to rise. He doesn't scream. 

He won't. 

He _can't_. 

He listens to Katie practically every night, and his mother, sometimes, in the clutches of nightmares. He listens to the death rattles of the animals he kills, the desperate cries of injured miners' wives, and the happy shrieks of emaciated children playing in the Seam. In his own nightmares, he listens to his father pleading for help. Every day, just...screaming. All that noise doesn't help anyone at all. And so Kendall doesn't make a sound, even when he wants to. 

He presses his lips together and slips through the familiar gap in the fence, swallowing the urge to flee from District Twelve, screaming at the top of his lungs. He feels better in the woods, calmer, freer. Dirt gives beneath his boots, soft, rich, brown. Kendall is close to soundless when he pads over the earth, the sun warming his shoulders through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Great big trees rise up from every angle, familiar with their scarred bark, the pocked places where woodpeckers have been at them and the hollow squirrel homes, the thick scent of pine and the bramble balls where mockingjays make their nests.

Kendall can breathe here. 

His bow lives in the gaping maw of a rotting log, camouflaged by a careful arrangement of moss and dead leaves. Kendall's happier with it in hand, with a quiver of arrows strapped across his back. Whenever he reaches over his shoulder he can feel their feathered tails. His father spent months crafting them. Nothing Kendall creates has ever been so beautiful. Which is fine. There's no room for artistry in his life. His one constant mission is simply to survive. 

Kendall spends close to an hour stalking a wild turkey through the woods, its plumage downy soft, its fat substantial. His mouth waters at the site of it, but in the end, he does not shoot. The critter scampers off at the crack of a foot against twigs, loud as a warning shot. Kendall nocks back an arrow only to be greeted with the fuzzy corpse of a bunny, caught up in a gruesome pantomime. 

"Don't shoot! I come in peace." 

The hands holding the hare like a puppeteer are brown, weathered, black beneath the nails. 

"Damnit, Carlos." 

Kendall throws a grumpy look towards the cluster of saplings the turkey is disappearing into. He could still make the shot, probably. He lowers his bow all the same, slipping the arrow back into its quiver. 

Carlos is laughing, his dark Seam eyes alive with mirth. "Come on, Kendhalia, no one's going to buy a bird that big on reaping day. The town is crawling with cameras." 

He has a point. 

Even the head peacekeeper, who favors fresh, wild meat over the farmed, capitol processed slabs the butcher sells wouldn't be so stupid. Still. It's the principle of the thing. 

"Maybe I was going to eat it." 

"You and what army?" 

"Just me. I was thinking I'd like to try a new look. I think they call it being full." 

"Ah," Carlos says wryly, one sooty eyebrow arching. "But whatever would the District do without the rumbling thunder of your stomach singing us sweetly to sleep at night? Better that you starve like the rest of us." 

"Ass." 

"Fine," Carlos snorts, falling into step beside Kendall as he begins trekking through the woods towards their favorite spot, a hillcrest that lets a person see for miles on end without fences, without borders. "I suppose I can share." 

He lifts his bounty, at least eight rabbits strung from his belt. 

"The snares had a good day." 

"The odds must be in our favor." 

Kendall settles down at the tip top of the grassy knoll, slumping back on his elbows. Overhead the sky is the kind of blue he sometimes forgets in the middle of District Twelve, where clouds of burning coal smoke can blot out every color but gray. Gray smoke and gray lives and gray people, withering away where they stand. 

Soon enough, Kendall will be eighteen, expected to work in the mines with the rest of them. His throat closes up at the idea. It's like trading one death sentence for another. The last school field trip down the shafts nearly drove him over the edge, claustrophobia making it nearly impossible to keep potential screaming at bay. 

"Doubtful," Carlos replies, uncharacteristically solemn. "My name's in thirty four times today. You?" 

"Twenty," Kendall admits, almost ashamed of the brothers and sisters he does not have to feed. Carlos is a year older than him, but they've been supporting their families for equally as long, since the mining accident that killed both of their fathers. 

"Still too many times." Carlos squeezes Kendall's shoulder, his fingers big, warm, comforting. Then he begins rooting around in his own leather knapsack, announcing, "I brought lunch." 

"Yeah? Katie left me some goat cheese. If we slap it on some tesserae, we could pretend it tastes like real bread." Kendall pulls the snack from a pouch at his hip, sniffing through the cheesecloth. He'd seen it sitting on the table right after sleep reclaimed his baby sister, garnished with a ribbon like solstice morning. He offers it to Carlos now, his grin dropping off his lips when he sees what Carlos is offering in return. "Is that...?" 

"Fresh from the bakery." 

"Sorcery. How did you convince the old man to part with it?" 

Carlos shrugs, examining his trophy. It is golden brown, still something like warm, and smells better than anything Kendall has eaten in months. Real bread is a treat. 

"It only cost a squirrel." His faces morphs into one of mock consternation. "He patted my cheek and called me son a few times and looked at me like I was already in the coffin. Most uplifting exchange I've had all day." 

Kendall is the one who snorts this time, loud as a feral hog. "Happy Hunger Games."

Carlos hands him the choicer half of the loaf, holding his own up in toast. "And may the odds be ever in your favor." 

Kendall spreads goat cheese across the surface of his bread with careful fingers. Katie's a decent businesswoman; it's not often she shares the fruits of her labor. 

Above them, the blue sky stretches wide, not a cloud to be seen. The wind rustles the grass, blades bending against his legs. The stench of fresh carrion permeates the air.

Carlos says, "We could run." 

Kendall doesn’t shoot the idea down immediately, even though it's not the first time Carlos has suggested it. 

Life in the Seam, under the thumb of the Capitol, sucks. It is hunger and misery, shitty working conditions for those old enough to go in the mines, and outright danger for those who care to speak out about it. Kendall knows of more than one willful neighbor who has conveniently disappeared. 

If the District’s peacekeepers weren't every bit as hungry as the citizens, what he and Carlos are doing, right now- hunting to provide for their families- would carry a penalty so heavy that it would mean their lives. Right now, they skirt the system that tries to keep them starved and complacent, but if they were to outright defy it? Disappear into the woods with their families and thumb their noses at the Capitol? 

"They'd catch us." 

"They could try. No one knows this forest better than us, Kendall," Carlos argues. 

"It would be harder, with our families. I've tried taking Katie hunting. She has all the grace of a wildebeest." 

Kendall takes a mouthful of bread, chewing slow. The goat cheese is creamy on his tongue. 

"Fine." Carlos wolfs down the rest of his bread, swallowing in one unhappy gulp. "We'll just go to the reaping this afternoon and wait to see who has the _honor_ of going to slaughter, just like every year." 

"Hey." 

Kendall stuffs the remainder of his own lukewarm bread in his mouth. In the face of Carlos's annoyance, it tastes like dirt. Through chews, he tells Carlos, "C'mere," and Carlos does, crawling on his knees until he is hovering over Kendall's lap. 

He strokes his index finger along the line of Kendall's jaw, eyes tight with pain, the wind teasing his short hair into spikes. "I can't lose you." 

Kendall circles his arms around Carlos's waist, pulling him forward so that he's fully straddling Kendall's thighs. His fingers slip beneath the leather of Carlos's hunting jacket, beneath the threadbare hem of his t-shirt. He nuzzles the hollow of Carlos's cheekbone and whispers fiercely, "You won't." 

Carlos shies back a little, his eyes so dark with storm clouds that they are nearly blackblackblack, like coal, like funeral shrouds. 

"You can't promise that." Before Kendall can formulate any kind of protest, he presses their mouths together, firm, hard, deep. His licks sunshine onto Kendall's lips. 

Kendall kisses back, caught up in the give of Carlos's mouth, soft, wet, and the way he makes Kendall's nerves hum like the electric fence bordering their district. 

When they first met, Kendall didn't trust Carlos as far as he could throw him. He snubbed every attempt the older boy made at friendship, trying to conquer the wilderness on his own. It was only after months and months of prowling the same hunting grounds- and accidentally getting tangled in several of his larger, truly excellent snares- that he began to think of Carlos as anything like an ally. He asked for help with his own pitiful trapping skills, offering up archery lessons in return. The next thing he knew, they were friends, and more. 

Kendall is sixteen, and he's barely got a handle on his hormones now. At fourteen, he was a mess. The only thing he was sure of was that he couldn't risk fucking with a girl, potentially creating one more applicant for the games. And Carlos was right there beside him, practically every day, hunting, laughing, shining. With his coal stained skin and dark Seam eyes and his strong biceps. 

He was Kendall's hero in a way, back then; proof positive that defying the rules wasn’t a bad thing. Not to mention all the times he spent helping Kendall fly up trees to escape packs of wild dogs, or the times they camped out, shivering, overnight, waiting for the fence's limited supply of energy to run out. It was inevitable that, in the midst of one laughing conversation the subject of girls would come up. That Kendall would turn bright red, stammering. That Carlos would come up with an idea. 

His memories of that night are hazy, but now he thinks of the way silly, funny Carlos turned serious, self-assured as he showed Kendall what his dick was for. He remembers biting Carlos's name into his own arm as he came, a hot sticky flood starkly contrasting the coal dust beneath Carlos's fingernails. 

It's still the same, like Carlos flicks a switch inside him, turns him on, makes him come alive. Carlos hitches his hips down, sending sparks across the surface of Kendall's skin, an electric feel that radiates down to his toes. 

"Can we?" Carlos asks, his fingertips already testing against the shape of Kendall's dick.

Kendall nods, frantic. "We don’t have a lot of time." 

Despite the warning, Carlos is slow with it, laying Kendall back on the grass and shrugging his pants down unhurried. He presses fever hot kisses against the inside of Kendall's knees, bites a bruise into his calf, right above his ankle. And Kendall watches, entranced by his hunting partner, his best friend, haloed by cerulean sky. 

Carlos instructs Kendall to turn over, and he does. The grass feels weird against his dick, too cool and textured for what Kendall wants. He can see the carcasses of tonight's furry tailed dinner, staring. But then Carlos's hands are at his ass, spreading Kendall wide enough that he can trace his tongue in a sluggish, wet circle. Kendall moans into the crook of his elbow, trying to smother the sound. Between the wind and their distance from the District, there's little chance of being heard, but this stuff still makes him nervous, self conscious beneath his skin. 

He's not used to losing control. 

Carlos flicks his tongue forward, like he's painting a bull's-eye. He runs his thumb down the strip of skin from Kendall's asshole to his balls, palming over them, writing figure eights with his fingertips. He fucks inside Kendall with his tongue at the same time. It is hot, fast, sudden. It makes Kendall rut down into the grass, looking for friction. 

Carlos's mouth is a tease, his tongue not long enough or large enough to do much more than make Kendall desperate, slick enough that Kendall's veins have turned to quicksilver, his pulse rapid, erratic. He wants Carlos to touch him, to fuck him. At the same time each shallow thrust of his tongue is unbearably fanfuckingtastic, these probing licks Kendall can feel all over, raising goosebumps across his skin. 

Carlos is the one who decides when it's enough, hauling Kendall up onto his knees. There is this awkward second where Kendall can hear him fumbling open the front of his pants, taking the weight of his cock in hand. He shoves Kendall's t-shirt up, and Kendall yanks it the rest of the way off, allowing Carlos to admire the way the sun dapples Kendall's spine. Carlos splays one hand across Kendall's tailbone, proprietary, and Kendall listens to the damp rasp of his other hand stroking precursorily over himself. Then there is the nudge of his cock, smearing precum across his cheeks, purposeful. 

"In. A. Rush," Kendall grits out, because they are, and because Carlos never really seems to tire of seeing how much he can make Kendall beg for him. 

He's gotten off more than once taunting Kendall's asshole without ever pushing in, forcing Kendall to wait long, needy minutes until he was ready to go again. It's amazing what a sweet, friendly guy Carlos can be up until he gets Kendall's pants off, and it becomes his mission to see how long it takes for him to overheat. 

This time, Carlos listens, aware that they really do have to get back. He uses the hand on the base of Kendall's spine to guide Kendall onto his dick, sinking into him with a sigh.

Kendall stares down at his hands, white knuckled, fisted in the grass. Carlos's hips are pressed flush to his ass, the head of his dick touching something inside Kendall that feels raw, real. It makes him feel more than he usually allows, all of his emotions locked up tight in case they end up hurting someone. But he's never hurt Carlos, never even come close to it. With him, here, surrounded by wilderness for miles on end, he's safe. 

Carlos glides his hands down Kendall's thighs, breathes, "You're tense. Tight." 

He sounds shaky, strained. Awed, maybe. Kendall flushes. Even after all this time, the intimacy makes him squirm, unsure if he deserves the kind of admiration that lights Carlos's voice at times like this. 

He knows Carlos cares about him, a lot, sometimes too much, but Kendall isn't sure if it's more than that, doesn't know what it will mean for them if it is. It make Kendall think maybe they really should run away, just the two of them. But. No. He knows Carlos wants kids someday, wants the kind of true love their District's mining wives sing folk songs about. Kendall isn't equipped to give him that, wouldn't do the former even if he was. 

He eyes his bow where it rests, only a few feet away and thinks life's too hard to get sentimental. 

In the end, it doesn't even matter how safe he feels or how much he cares. He can't let Carlos get in the way of protecting Katie and his mom, at least for now. 

This is just sex. That's all it can be. 

So he's quiet when Carlos presses a gentle kiss to his spine, quiet through the first few experimental pumps of his hips. Quiet until Carlos draws back a little more than halfway and then fucks forward, jolting Kendall enough that he bites his tongue, coppery blood against his teeth. He swallows it down, and in the time it takes to do so Carlos has already slammed into him three times, all at different angles, all impossibly good, hard enough that each impact reverbs up Kendall's spine. Kendall groans, loud and broken. Carlos is setting the pace fast, too fast. Each time his dick kisses up against Kendall's prostate it is like lightning, shorting out his nervous system, turning his limbs limp. 

Carlos doesn't usually ride Kendall this hard, playful, drawing his orgasms out. But now he is proving a point, ensuring Kendall will feel this for weeks in case...just in case. And what's more, Kendall likes it like this, likes the indent of his knees in the dirt and the way he imagines himself red and stretched across Carlos's cock with every pump of his hips. He likes how he never has a chance to feel empty, because every withdrawal ends with Carlos seated so smoothly and deeply inside of Kendall that it's like he has no choice but to memorize every heated, hard inch of him. Best of all Kendall likes how the brutal rhythm jars all the thoughts from his head, keeps him firmly in the moment keening, "Yes," and "God," and "Harder." 

Kendall's body is pulling tight as a bowstring, his dick hanging heavy between his legs. He wants to touch it, wants to ease the ache with quick sure strokes that will finish him off, force him to seize up around Carlos, letting go completely. But he can't. His hands are the only thing keeping him from careening headfirst into the grass, and he's digging his hands in so tightly his nails are beneath topsoil, clawing at the damp beneath.

"Carlos," he pleads, gasps, begs. 

He is too gone, too close, and Carlos gets it with the same kind of intuitiveness that makes him a great hunting partner. In one easy motion his palm is wrapped sure and loose around Kendall, a light skidding touch that fizzes pleasure across his skin. It turns tight, rougher, to match the tempo of Carlos inside him. 

Carlos hisses, voice scraping, unrefined, "You've gotten so fucking hard for me," and he sounds like he feels, like he makes Kendall feel; shattered. 

Kendall bucks into his grip, an easy slide abetted by the thin viscosity of precum leaking from his dick. He grinds back, taking Carlos down so far and so deep that he can feel the damp bristle of hair and the base of his cock. And then he lets go, releases to the blueblueblue of the sky, cerulean imprinted on his eyes even when they squeeze shut. Carlos shudders against him, a pulse that makes it better, messier, draws it out longer. And through it all he is wrapped around Kendall, chest finally bent to his spine, shielding him from the world. 

\--

On their way back to the District, they stop by a patch of wild strawberries, collecting fistfuls to take back home. 

There among the fruit- bright, red, like bloodstains amidst leafy green foliage, like a prophecy- Carlos tries to hold Kendall's hand. Kendall bats him away. But just before they slip back into the real world, he lets Carlos kiss him. For luck. 

That's what Kendall tells himself. 

It thrills through his body all the same, Carlos's lips more electrified than the dead metal fence. They slip through the gap silent, unseen. 

They move like shadows across town, refusing to make a production of their kills until they reach the Hob. It is a dusty, decrepit, slapshod building formerly used to house coal. Now it is home to District Twelve's bustling black market. 

Carlos and Kendall sell three rabbits, two traded to Greasy Bitters in exchange for stew that tastes vaguely of rat; breakfast, and one for some other household necessities. At the last second, Kendall picks up a shiny purple ribbon for Katie. She likes presents. She finds them easier to accept than hugs, sometimes. 

Next they hit up the mayor's house, where his pretty daughter Lucy buys a few strawberries for real live money. She's in Kendall's year in school. Lucy is rich. Kendall is distant. Neither have many friends in that place. They sit together on some projects, more out of loner solidarity than any real semblance of friendship. 

Lucy offers up a mild smile as she digs through the change purse. "Are you guys ready for this afternoon?" 

"As much as we can be." Kendall shrugs. Small talk isn't his forte. "You?" 

Carlos makes a disparaging noise. "Why wouldn't she be? How many times is your name in? Four?" 

"Carlos," Kendall intervenes, stepping between the two before Lucy can actually punch Carlos in the face. 

Her hands bunch in the black fabric of her reaping day dress. But to Kendall's shock, she manages a quiet, "I'm sorry," before shutting the door in their faces. 

"Why would you ask that? She can't help who she is." 

Carlos smacks Kendall's ass, guiding him back out into town square. 

"Look at you. Defender of the innocent." The words are light, but his tone is not. "She'd make a beautiful wife." 

Kendall takes a deep breath, his butt stinging from the slap, a not so subtle reminder of the hour before. Already they are hanging the banners, Panem's emblem fluttering across the surface, sinister, a warning. 

"Really? You want to do this now?" 

Shoulders slumping, Carlos replies, "No. Sorry." The corners of his mouth are turned down. Kendall thinks he looks so much better with a smile. 

He pulls Carlos in by the neck, knocks their foreheads together. He can smell the remnants of Bitters' stew on his breath. "I don't want her, you know." 

He waits for Carlos's smile, brighter than the sun that now hides behind coal smoke.

Kendall wants to kiss him. Too aware of the cameras being mounted on every visible surface, he says instead, "Good luck today." 

"I'll see you there." 

Carlos has no compunctions against being seen. He squeezes Kendall's hand, lingering. 

Then he is gone.


	2. The Reaping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kendall calls out again, "I volunteer," because he needs to make sure the words have been heard. He shoves through the crowd of guys surrounding him, out into the pathway that leads to stage. Katie, now flanked by Peacekeepers, is staring at Kendall like she can't quite figure out what he's doing. Miss Collins is wearing the same look, one that is equal parts fondness and exasperation at his idiocy. She makes a great effort in keeping her bright smile pasted on.

At home, Kendall delivers up Carlos's kills and the remaining strawberries with flourish.  
  
"We'll have a feast tonight," his mom says appreciatively, in the midst of braiding Katie. "Now get those bloody bunnies off my table."  
  
Kendall huffs a laugh, because it is expected.  
  
After his dad died, his mother took a hiatus from life. She shrunk inside a shell of grief that neither Kendall nor Katie could penetrate. It drove him insane, how easy it was for her to abandon them.  
  
They were defenseless.  
  
They were starving.  
  
Kendall spent the first month and a half of that dismal year scrounging what he could, or worse. Even with tesserae, it wasn't enough. He gave his portions to Katie and slowly watched the outline of his ribs become clearer and clearer beneath his skin.  
  
Eventually, he remembered the bow and sheath of arrows hidden away in the woods. He'd never been out there alone, but hunger and desperation drove him. He headed into the wilderness and never really looked back.  
  
As time passed, his mom rebounded. She is again the clever, no-nonsense caretaker he recalls from the before times. But Kendall hasn't forgotten what it feels like to be eleven and terrified and empty inside. He hasn't forgiven the months she spent curled into her bed, in complete absentia. He can laugh now, can force a smile or play act like everything's okay, but it's all make believe.  
  
Like most things these days, it's for Katie's sake.  
  
He watches his mother finish the intricate braid in Katie's hair. "You look beautiful, baby sister."  
  
Their mother nods her agreement, but Katie bunches her hands in the white fabric of her dress.  
  
"I look like a maypole threw up on me. All I need are ribbons..." she trails off as Kendall holds out the purple bit he picked up at the Hob with a cheeky grin. "Great. I'll be the most festive tribute the Games have ever seen."  
  
Her words are harsh, but Kendall doesn't take it to heart. He knows she resorts to sarcasm when she's scared. Besides, she is stroking her fingers appreciatively over the ribbon, almost fawning. It's not often that any of them get nice things.  
  
Kendall kneels down in front of her, straightening the collar of her dress. Low enough that their mom can't hear, he says, "Don't worry. They won't pick you."  
  
"But what if they do?" Katie frets.  
  
"They won't."  
  
"But what if they _do_?"  
  
Kendall sweeps a stray tendril of hair that has escaped the braid behind Katie's ear. "I'll always protect you. Trust me, okay?"  
  
Katie still looks worried, her lower lip white from biting at it. But she nods, because Kendall has never let her down.  
  
He leaves Katie in the dubiously capable hands of his mother so that he can put on his reaping day finery. This year, his mother has laid an old outfit of his father's on Kendall's bed. He traces his fingers over the rough seams of the arm. He remembers resting his head there as a kid, clinging to his dad's shoulder. He sniffs the fabric, but it smells like the dark, musty corners of his mother's wardrobe, nothing more.  
  
The clothes fit him to a T, which is strange. Kendall is used to thinking of himself as scrawnier, thinner, smaller than his dad. Now the fabric of his father's best shirt stretches across the broad span of his shoulders, and the hem of his dress pants is almost too short. When Kendall glances at himself in the dirty, unpolished surface of their dad's old looking glass, he can almost imagine it's his dad looking back, right down to his crooked smile. Katie inherited their dad's dark Seam hair and eyes, but everyone always says that Kendall has their dad's face, dimples and all.  
  
"Handsome boy," his mother says from behind him. Kendall jumps, startled, all his hunter's instincts dulled by the illusion of safety inside his home. She cards her fingers through his hair, standing on tip-toe to reach.  
  
Kendall shifts around, uneasy with the contact until she explains, "You look like you've been rolling in the dirt. Did the rabbits put up a fight?"  
  
Kendall flinches, red creeping up his spine. He almost preferred it when his mother was too comatose to be shrewd. He says, "We're going to be late. I'll take Katie on ahead."  
  
He frees his head from his mother's hands only for her to grab at his wrist. She holds him in place, gentle, but her eyes are piercing. "Be safe."

  


\---

  
During the walk to town square, the distant strains of Panem's anthem dance in and out of their ears, weighty as a funeral dirge. To counteract the way each note makes Katie's shoulders tense, Kendall hums along to that same mountain lullaby he sang this morning. The melodies blend into something less sinister. Katie's mouth quirks into a smile.  
  
She really does look beautiful in her frilly dress, like a butterfly amidst the gravel and coal dust and graygraygray. She is unspoiled. Kendall plans on keeping her that way.  
  
In the middle of town square, kids stand in roped off squares like cattle waiting to be culled. Kendall helps Katie find her place in line among pale-faced twelve year olds. Her palm is clammy in his grip, and she refuses to let go. Kendall thinks of the absolute terror he felt during his first Reaping, and how he had no one to hold his hand. He tried so hard to keep a stiff upper lip, to give nothing away, even if he was picked.  
  
Kendall can still remember the faces of the kids they chose that year, and how ashamed he was of his own relief. His baby sister is enough like him that she's got her brave face on, but in a way she's so much younger and less tested than he was his first time. Kendall murmurs, "Trust me," and kisses her forehead.  
  
She gives him a weak smile and reluctantly lets go. Kendall walks backwards until her little brown head is enveloped by the sea of kids just like her, but who mean so much less. He finds his place in line on the boys' side, coincidentally right in front of Carlos.  
  
Carlos does a much better brave face than Katie. His smile is huge, albeit fake as he can be. He squeezes Kendall's shoulder while they wait for the rest of the District to fall into place. His fingertips make a spot inside of Kendall ache.  
  
On stage, the mayor's people have set out three folding chairs. One for him, one for the effervescent Capitol chaperone, and one for District Twelve's only victor, Gustavo Rocque. The chairs stand empty until Miss Collins totters on stage in sky scraper heels, her expression that of an indulgent preschool teacher.  
  
"What _is_ she wearing?" Carlos mutters behind Kendall, leaning close enough that his breath stirs the hair on the back of his neck. Kendall snorts, trying to figure out the same thing. Fashion as a whole often eludes him, but Capitol fashion is practically extraterrestrial. If Katie looked like a butterfly in her pretty dress, Miss Collins is an exotic bird, right down to her turquoise lips and blue plumed hat.  
  
She taps the microphone once, twice, a test that alerts the sound crew to dim the booming ode to Panem. It's only when the music fades into nothingness that Kendall realizes he's been humming the folk lullaby he began on the road under his breath this whole time. He flushes with embarrassment as the last few notes ring out into the still air, drawing the attention of his line-mates.  
  
"Nice voice, Knight," Carlos says gleefully. In a lower, more lurid voice, he adds, "I like it when you sing for me."  
  
The tall boy standing next to Kendall clearly overhears, his posture going rigid. Kendall can't break rank to punch Carlos in the arm, so he settles for a glare thrown over his shoulder. He gets a tongue stuck out in return, glistening pink in the graying sunshine.   
  
Miss Collins begins to speak in her affected accent, shared by most Capitol lackeys. It's clear by the way she looks out onto the crowd that she would prefer a bigger district, one full of champions instead of children with sunken eyes and protruding bones. Still, she maintains her peppy persona while introducing an educational video full of Capitol propaganda. A monotone narrator expounds upon the tragic history of Panem, focusing specifically on the rebellion and eventual obliteration of District Thirteen.  
  
They've all heard the story so many times that they can recite it by heart, and Miss Collins does, her lips rounding out the words with a kind of fanatic fervor that indicates she actually believes them. Kendall doesn’t personally know anyone who is that naïve. The Capitol represents many things, but justice has never been one of them. Just look at the Games, a punishment doled out to the defiant Districts for daring to have a voice. Kendall's never met anyone old enough to remember the insurgence, so who, exactly, are they punishing?  
  
The smoking ruins of Thirteen fades into a voiceover concluding that it is _an honor and a privilege_ to participate in the great, glorious Hunger Games. Miss Collins claps her hands overenthusiastically. "I just love that."  
  
No one joins her applause.  
  
"Right. Ladies first," Miss Collins announces to the crowd, obviously a little put out by the lack of a response. It's not hard to see the thoughts running through her head; what _atrocious_ manners District Twelve has.  
  
She looms over the great glass bowl holding the meticulously folded names of every eligible girl-child in the square. Her fingers dance over slips of paper, fine, white, pristine. She selects one, holding it out to the crowd like a trophy.  
  
"Let's see." Miss Collins is flawless with her enunciation, each letter pronounced with care. It means Kendall can hear perfectly when she says, "Katie Knight."  
  
There is stunned silence. People look from left to right to find the Knight girl. Which one is she again? Kendall finds himself swept up in the gazes of the crowd, uncomprehending at first. It's only when the crowd around Katie parts like a river around stones and he sees her standing there- small, despite her braids and purple ribbon and the white ruffled hem of her dress- that it sinks in.  
  
No. No. Nononono _no_.  
  
His protest reverberates through every inch of his being. His bones shake with it. His ears roar with it. He promised he'd _protect_ her.  
  
Her wan face cements his determination. The words leave Kendall's mouth before he has a chance to think them over, but he would not change them. No power on Earth could ever make him change them. "I volunteer!"  
  
He steps forward, right into the orderly muster-line of fifteen year olds. A hand at his back keeps him from tripping all over the younger boys, and at first he thinks it's Carlos. Kendall shrugs it off, rough, because there is nothing Carlos can do to change his mind about this. Except that it is not Carlos, it is his line-mate, the tall boy with the judgmental eyes, the one who scowled at Carlos's flirting just minutes earlier.  
  
Before everything changed.  
  
Kendall calls out again, "I volunteer," because he needs to make sure the words have been heard. He shoves through the crowd of guys surrounding him, out into the pathway that leads to stage. Katie, now flanked by Peacekeepers, is staring at Kendall like she can't quite figure out what he's doing. Miss Collins is wearing the same look, one that is equal parts fondness and exasperation at his idiocy. She makes a great effort in keeping her bright smile pasted on.  
  
"I appreciate your, uh, enthusiasm. Such valor! But, dear, you can't. It's against the rules."  
  
"There are no rules," Kendall retorts with vitriol. He thinks about it and tacks on. "Except for no eating people."  
  
That was a big deal during one of the Games he watched as a kid, when a victor went cannibalistic on the competition. It's not exactly an ironclad _rule_ , but it is generally accepted knowledge that if a tribute tries to get munchy on another while in the arena, the Gamemakers will off them. Not that it matters now.  
  
Miss Collins is flustered. She fans a gloved hand in front of her face, pearly buttons shining weakly beneath the bright lights on stage. She argues, "The statutes clearly say each District must have a male and a female contestant- "  
  
“Where?" Kendall demands.  
  
From across the row, a tiny thing squeezed between big, bad men with guns, Katie hisses, "Kendall."  
  
She looks scared, but no longer for herself. Several Peacekeeper guns are aimed straight at him.  
  
Kendall knows that he's causing a scene. He knows that this isn't done. No one contends with the District chaperones. Not ever. "Where is that written? I want to see it."  
  
"It's not written, it's- it's- known, young man."  
  
"If it isn't written down, how do you know that I can't do it?"  
  
"Because-" Miss Collins's cheery smile puckers. She obviously has no idea what to do. District Twelve hasn't had a volunteer since before Kendall was born, much less one trying to debate the common-law edicts that have been the foundry for the Hunger Games since they first began. She glances up at the cameras, trying to regain her composure, while Kendall stares down the barrel of a Peacekeeper's gun.  
  
They could shoot him, right here, right now. Right on camera, they could make sure that he doesn't ever make a scene again. Kendall stands his ground, staring down the Peacekeepers at Katie's side like he's got a bow in his hands. His empty fingers twitch, and for the briefest of moments he wonders if he could get a hold of one of the guns.  
  
It wouldn't help anything. They'd kill him, and probably everyone he's ever had the misfortune of interacting with, before he could even make it out of the square. But he must pantomime his intentions somehow, because the guns are raising higher, trained straight on his face, and Miss Collins is squeaking into the microphone, "Alright, alright, you come up on stage now, dear," her voice laced with panic.  
  
It wouldn't be the first time someone was shot during the Reapings, but it's largely frowned upon. The lemmings in the Capitol like to pretend tributes _enjoy_ being tributes. Besides, a bloodbath will ruin Miss Collins' chances at ever getting promoted to a larger District. She beckons Kendall forward, encouraging, and after a tense moment the Peacekeepers at Katie's side lower their guns and guide him towards the platform.  
  
He finds his feet are unsteady as he climbs up the stairs. Miss Collins has to reach for him, her claw-like nails digging crescents into the skin of his forearm. She is perky as can be when they make it to the microphone on stage, but her irritation at him shows when her grip tightens, breaking skin. "What's your name, darling?"  
  
Kendall is kind of having trouble remembering it up there, staring out at a crowd of people he's known his entire life, gathered grave-faced at his feet. He searches for Katie and finds her wrapped in Carlos's arms. The two of them look downright funerary. He stumbles out, "Kendall Knight."  
  
The watery sunlight hits his eyes at an odd angle, reflecting off a camera lens. Miss Collins' talons loosen.  
  
Capitol citizens are so easily swayed by sentimentality. It would be funny if it wasn't happening to Kendall, if his baby sister and his best friend weren't staring at him like he's already dead. And Kendall can't handle it, not gracefully, the ever present desire to scream building along his spine, ringing inside his head. He chokes on it, and he will not give anyone the pleasure of seeing him fall to pieces. Especially not the cameras. Instead he really does laugh, truly; it bubbles from his lips sounding exactly like hysteria.  
  
That is when a voice bellows, "I'm here, I'm here! The party-" the words are punctuated by a loud belch, "-can begin."  
  
Kendall's future mentor has arrived. Gustavo Rocque alights the stage with all the elegance of a rampaging bear. His footing is sloppy, his speech slurred, and even with feet stretched between them, the stench of grain alcohol assaults Kendall's nose, emanating straight from Gustavo's pores.  
  
He is supposed to be the man who will fetch Kendall and his District-mate through the Games, who will lead one of them to victory. Watching this confidence-inspiring display, Kendall feels the surety of his own impending death.   
  
Gustavo's mean, beady-eyed gaze lifts, momentarily calculating as he examines Kendall. Kendall allows himself to hope that the drunken fool act is just that- an act.   
  
Then Gustavo says, "You are one hell of a dog-faced girl," and promptly teeters right off the stage.   
  
So much for hope.   
  
Miss Collins hurries to say, "Yes, so how about it for Kendall Knight?"   
  
She is clapping again, just as hard and enthused as she was following the film. To the credit of District Twelve, no one deigns to join in. What happens instead means so much more. A girl in Katie's age group touches three fingers to her lips and raises them straight into the air. It has a ripple effect, the gesture echoed throughout the crowd.   
  
Kendall has to bite back that scream again; this is not a symbol of celebration. This is his people's way of saying goodbye.   
  
He can't manage much more that a short nod of acknowledgment. Even if he'd wanted to, Miss Collins is already flurrying across stage, calling, "And now for the...other...male tribute of District Twelve!"   
  
She barely sticks her fingers in the bowl before pulling out a slip of paper. Kendall squeezes his eyes shut while Miss Collins fumbles it open, thinking not Carlos, not Carlos, _not Carlos_. He's so busy hoping that the name on Miss Collins's lips won't be Carlos Garcia that he actually misses it the first time she reads it.   
  
His eyes flick open. He sees that the white uniformed Peacekeepers are moving like sharks through the crowd towards the Hunger Games' next victim, who is- notCarlosnotCarlosnotCarlos- Kendall's eyes rest on the place where a Peacekeeper's hand has just landed, right on the crook of a boy's elbow.   
  
It is not Carlos.   
  
Miss Collins's voice comes back into focus, saying, "James Diamond? James Diamond? Oh, there you are, darling."   
  
James Diamond, the tall boy who stood wordlessly beside Kendall in line, who scowled at Carlos when he cracked a lewd joke, who held Kendall back when he tried to volunteer for his sister will be going into the arena with him.   
  
Kendall cannot feel a lot of things. The nerve endings in his fingers and toes have gone icy numb, his thoughts are a fuzzy, indiscernible mess, and the only thing keeping him standing is the distant idea that if he faints on stage he'll look like a very easy target. But dread strikes up a symphony in the pit of his stomach that he can feel in a visceral, terrifying way, because- _fuck_ \- James would not have been Kendall's first choice either.   
  
It's not that he's scared. Sure, James is broad, strong. He towers over half the guys in their age group. Hell, he towers over half the kids in the square, period. Kendall has no doubt that he could do some serious damage in the arena. He's not feeling super optimistic about his own chances, but hey, between him and James, maybe District Twelve will have its first victor in twenty four years.   
  
All that said, Kendall is really fond of living. And to keep on doing so, James is going to have to die. That's where the problem lies.   
  
Guilt tastes like rot in his mouth, like decay in his throat. He stares vacantly out at the crowd and tries to go back to that whole state of being where his insides felt anesthetized. It was infinitely preferable to the tide of emotion tugging at his kidneys, his stomach, his heart.   
  
James tamely allows the Peacekeepers to usher him towards the stage, absolutely stunned by his bad luck. A few hands reach out to pat him on the back or clap him on the shoulder as he goes. James is a popular guy. But no volunteers offer to take his place. Not even James's own big brother, who watches with insipid regret.   
  
Kendall tries and fails to quell his pity. He refuses to meet James's eyes.   
  
Once James is situated, squinting up at the cameras, Miss Collins takes both of their hands. The skin of her palm is as cool and smooth as river stone. Kendall does not listen to her bubbly speech celebrating the new tributes of District Twelve. He's too focused on James, on the past. Memories crackle like a heat storm on the horizon of his mind.   
  
Before Kendall's dad died, Kendall didn't know what it meant to be hungry, not really. His father worked his ass off at the mines and hunted game on weekends. His mother did odd jobs all over town. She was from the merchant class, and had an in with most of the upper class families. It wasn't a lavish existence, but his family scraped by. They did not suffer many hollow days.   
  
Then the accident in the mines occurred. Suddenly his dad- and all the food he brought to the dinner table- was out of the picture. Kendall's mom was dead to the world. And no one would help. Kendall tried to ask his neighbors. He begged. He pleaded, all his pride be damned. Nobody had the food to spare.   
  
He did his best to keep his family afloat, but Kendall still had months before he could apply for tesserae, and people can only subsist on pine needle tea for so long. He became painfully intimate with the kind of hunger most of the Seam already knew, the kind that does in small children.   
  
Like Katie.   
  
There was a ravenous pit in his stomach that felt like it could never be filled. He could barely think. Some days, he could barely move. He gave whatever he could scavenge to his baby sister, taking nothing for himself.   
  
Kendall was desperate.   
  
He tried hitting up the head Peacekeeper, a man with an infamous appetite for things Kendall didn't yet understand. Eleven years old, innocent as could be, and he tried to sell himself for sex. In retrospect, he was lucky that the Head Peacekeeper did not want a boy. He doesn’t think it would have been pleasant. At the time though, he was devastated. Starved, half-dead, he didn’t know what else to do. He thought that his days were numbered, and it was tragic because he had barely lived.   
  
Kendall was scavenging in the bins adjacent to the town bakery on a Wednesday evening when things changed. The sky was weeping, the constant gray hue that owned District Twelve turned deeper, more ominous. Droplets of water streamed down the contours of his face, pooling in concave places that hadn’t been concave before. Kendall had to keep wiping it from his eyes as he searched through rot and rubbish.   
  
The wet felt too much like tears.  
  
Digging through other people’s trash was illegal, and distasteful to boot, but he couldn’t be bothered caring. _Katie_ was the only coherent thought he could carry.   
  
The baker’s wife caught him in the act, his hands deep inside the bin. She was a banshee of a woman, her screams loud despite the sound-dulling presence of the rain. She called Kendall names, yelled obscenities he’d never heard. She threatened to call the Peacekeepers on him.   
  
Kendall cowered behind a tree, focused less on her shrieks and more on the pale face peeking out from behind her apron, a boy his age with dark hair and sooty eyelashes. _James_. Kendall had seen him around school before, but they never talked. Seam kids didn’t really mingle with the merchants’ children.   
  
Through the sheets of rain, James looked insubstantial. He was a tiny ghost, tugging his mother's dress until she turned her attention on him. " _What_?"   
  
Kendall was too far away to make out what James replied, but whatever it was earned him an earful. His mother dragged him inside the bakery by the arm. Her grip looked bruising. And Kendall stood hidden behind that tree, hands pressed to wet bark, wondering what, exactly, he was supposed to do now. If he kept trying to steal from garbage cans, there was a large possibility he'd keep on getting caught. He and Katie would get sent to a work house. They'd become like those poor, vacant eyed kids he sometimes saw wandering the Seam, hand red-knuckled and raw, barely scraping by on scraps. Too many of those kids ended up dead on the street, without even a decent burial. They had no one to mourn them.   
  
Kendall was in the midst of resigning himself to imminent, painful death when a tiny silhouette marched back onto the bakery stoop. James was carrying two loaves of bread, blackened, just like the bruises blooming around the contour of his eye. The gray veil of rain could obscure a lot, but not that; not that pitch color, stark against his skin. James was looking straight at the swine the bakery kept, his intent evident. Pigs would be better fed than Kendall and his family that night. He dug his white, numb fingers into his sides, trying to chase away his hunger. He was wet, and cold, and he just wanted to go home.   
  
Then- and this moment has been painted in Kendall's memory ever since, captured perfectly in watercolor strokes of gray- James tossed the loaves in Kendall's direction. He stood on the steps, shivering, like the rain was infinitely preferable to what waited inside. He did not glance in Kendall's direction to see if his gift was accepted.   
  
Which it was, of course it was. The bread was blackened on the outside, but perfectly fine inside, golden and warm. Kendall's family would not go hungry tonight.   
  
He'd never experienced kindness like that before. He didn't know the protocol. Did he say _thank you_? Did he run up the steps and hug this strange boy? Before Kendall could make up his mind, James reluctantly trekked back inside, shoulders set.   
  
Kendall thought perhaps the bread burned on purpose. That James defied that scary shrew of a mother for Kendall. He wondered if James would pay for it.   
  
If he already had; maybe that bruise was his fault.   
  
Kendall tucked the bread beneath his thin jacket to protect it from the rain. It was a good thing, too, because on the way back home, he fell.   
  
He'd taken a different route home, scared someone would think he'd stolen James's gift. The gravel was loose, slick, unsteady from the downpour. Kendall knew the second that he misstepped that he was going down. He rolled with the fall, trying to protect his prize. That is how he ended up face first in an embankment of mud, a wilted dandelion sticking to the tip of his nose.   
  
Disgusted, weak, Kendall scrambled to his feet. The bread was safe. He froze all the same.   
  
The dandelion was already half buried beneath the debris he'd shed in his attempt to stand. It was probably rotted through, anyway. But for the first time since his father's death, Kendall allowed himself to remember a field of the same, beyond the line of the District's electric fence. The hunting trips his father actually allowed him to tag along on had been few and far between, and the recollections were painful now that his dad was no longer around. Moreover, Kendall was scared of braving the woods alone. Yet, that day, rain-soaked and tired, he had James's bravery fresh in his mind. He could do this. He could save Katie and his mother and himself.   
  
And he never would have figured that out if it wasn't for the boy with the bread.   
  
Kendall never spoke to James after that, not in school, not on the street, and not at any of the numerous Reapings he'd attended. He met Carlos, fed his family, and went on with his life.   
  
He never forgot, though. In a way, James was his salvation.   
  
Miss Collins says, "How about a handshake for the cameras, boys?"   
  
Kendall does not want to shake James's hand.   
  
He apparently does not get a choice.   
  
Miss Collins forces their palms together until his is pressed into James's callused grip, James's long fingers wrapped around his. James squeezes, and Kendall wonders if the move is meant to comfort or intimidate. He looks up into the taller boy’s eyes, hazel, flecked through with gold.   
  
He thinks that it is a shame that he will have to kill him.   
  
The Reaping comes to a close when Miss Collins, with lukewarm cheer, announces, "So let's all wish our...boys...the best of luck. And may the odds be ever in your favor!"   
  
She ushers James and Kendall into town hall, mostly leaning on them for support. Her balance is precarious in her spiky heels. Kendall has to fight the impulse to shove her away. In her peacock ensemble, with her cobalt and aquamarine baubles, she doesn't much resemble his idea of sinister. Besides, she's the District's chaperone. It's in her best interest to ensure that one of her tributes wins. Pissing her off is probably a quickest way to an early grave. That is why Kendall allows himself to be docilely planted in a wood paneled room.   
  
It's time for his final good byes.   
  
Katie and his mom are first. Kendall doesn’t know what to expect, but it certainly isn't his baby sister's fierce rage. She storms into the room trailing thunder and lightning. When Kendall opens his arms for a hug, she punches him right in the kidneys. "Idiot!"   
  
"Ow! Katie, I need those! To live!”  
  
“Only one,” Katie retorts, her lower lip trembling. Her hair shines like mahogany, the intricate braids their mother deftly wove already coming untucked.   
  
Kendall wraps his arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay.”  
  
She hits him again, weaker this time, right beneath the armpit. “It’s not okay. It’s not even close to okay.”   
  
“Yeah,” Kendall admits. He strokes his hand over the top of her head. Her fingers fist in the back of his shirt. She clings to him. Wet begins to soak through the front of his shirt. Kendall knows they’re tears, but he also knows better than to tell Katie not to cry. He hugs her tighter.   
  
“You’ll be fine. You’ve got your goat, and mom, and Carlos will help out,” Kendall promises, because he and Carlos worked out a contingency plan for this ages ago. Kendall would do the same for his brothers and sisters, if the roles were reversed.   
  
He’s so thankful that the roles are not reversed.   
  
Carlos is better at the whole comfort thing than Kendall has ever managed to be. Like now, he cannot force Katie away, cannot bring himself to break his hold. He’s supposed to be strong for her, but he wants to hold on to his little sister until he has no choice but to let go. And Katie is steadfast, immutable. She will stand her ground until the Peacekeepers drag her kicking and screaming away. Kendall wends his fingers in her braids, pressing her face closer to his chest.   
  
To his heart.   
  
Thin arms wrap around his shoulders, stronger than the ones locked at his waist.   
  
“You’ll win.” The words are calm, but not detached. Kendall’s mother has carefully sandwiched Katie between them, creating a shelter for them both in the circle of her arms. She runs her fingers through the short hairs on the back of Kendall’s neck. “You’re strong. Stronger than I ever was.”  
  
She is rueful, practically welling with regret, and it is not the time. Kendall doesn’t want apologies. They will wreck him, and he still has a minefield of cameras to face on the trek to the train. He swallows.   
  
Harsh, in his mother’s ear, he instructs. “Mom. Don’t leave her.”  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” his mom replies steadily, caressing his neck, smoothing down his hair. It makes Kendall feel like a child again.   
  
He can’t cope with it. He grits out, “I’m serious. Katie can’t sign up for tesserae. I’ve worked too hard-“   
  
“Kendall,” his mom says fiercely, “I’ll protect her.”  
  
Kendall believes her. “I love you.”  
  
The words are rusty from disuse, but the sentiment remains. After everything that’s happened, Kendall really does love his mom.   
  
He only gets a few more seconds with her and Katie, seconds that stretch with the viscosity of Katie’s tears and the regret in his mother’s eyes. He tells them both that he loves them at least ten more times, and he hears it, whispered like a prayer, in return.   
  
The Peacekeepers really do end up having to drag them out; his mom with a gentle hand in the crook of her elbow, and Katie swept up in arms as she screams, “Kendall, win, you have to win!”  
  
“I will. I promise I will!” He calls after her, but the door is already swinging shut. Kendall thinks about opening it, about running from the room, running straight and true until he reaches the woods.   
  
He has to talk himself out of cowardice.   
  
Left to his own devices, he tries to admire the décor. It’s hard. From the outside, City Hall looks like a mansion. Inside this tiny room, it is apparent that rot and ruin are not exclusive to the Seam. The wooden paneling is streaked with water stains. The rich, red brocade curtains are dusty from disuse. There are moth-holes hidden in the folds.   
  
The entirety of it reminds him of the women who work in the shadier part of town, lips painted red, gaze mean. They are tarnished, gone to seed, but sometimes Kendall will look at one and think that she must once have been beautiful.   
  
There is a knock at the door. His next visitor is Lucy, all done up in her Reaping Day best.   
  
"Rotten luck,” she states, closing the door. Kendall nods his agreement, not sure what to say. He can’t think of anything that doesn’t involve curse words.   
  
Lucy looks around the stateroom like she’s never seen it before. Maybe she hasn’t. Kendall doesn’t know what’s involved in being the mayor’s daughter.   
  
“I’m surprised to see you.” He is. He expected Carlos.   
  
Lucy shrugs. As often as they’ve been forced together at school, Kendall has no idea how to read her. Her dark eyes betray nothing. She fiddles around with the hem of her dress. “Wear this in the arena.”  
  
The gold pin she presses into Kendall’s hand is worth enough to feed Kendall’s family for a year. It’s not hard to see why Carlos resents her wealth, if she can give something like this away so easily. Kendall holds it up. “A mockingjay?”  
  
“You’re allowed a token.”  
  
Kendall considers turning it down. He doesn’t need some fancy piece of jewelry, but. He likes the sentiment.   
  
Mockingjays are a gigantic _fuck you_ to the Capitol, the result of a genetic breeding experiment gone awry. Back in the dark times, they created a hybrid species called a jabberjay; male birds that could perfectly emulate a human voice. They used the hideous things to spy on rebels, recording information and bringing it back to home base. When the rebels quickly figured out what was what, they used the Capitol’s own creations to spread useless information, lies wrapped up like the truth.   
  
It took a while for the Capitol to catch on that they were being made to look like fools. The purpose of the jabberjays became defunct. The project was scrapped. The birds were released out into the wild, where it was expected they would die. Instead, they mated with mockingbirds, and a new hybrid was born. For once, a creature did not die just because the Capitol told it to.   
  
Kendall is not a jabberjay. He cannot be outright defiant. But something as small as this? The tiniest, subtlest indication that he does not march blindly to his death, leaving his persecutors faultless? It is allowed. Besides. When they send his body back to his family, the pin will likely still be attached to his clothes. Katie or his mom can hawk the thing.   
  
That is what he’s thinking when Lucy presses a kiss to his lips, soft, sweet, chaste. Her command, on the other hand, is close to feral, “Survive.”  
  
Kendall’s mouth drops open. The scent of the strawberries he and Carlos picked in the morning clings to her skin.   
  
His too, now. “What was that?”  
  
“For luck,” Lucy replies. She leaves the room in a flurry of black skirts and authority. The Peacekeepers dive out of her way, just to avoid getting stomped on. Guiltily, Kendall thinks that she’d have a better chance of surviving than he would. He doesn’t dwell on it.   
  
His next guest still isn’t Carlos. It’s the baker. James’s dad. This can’t be good. If he’s come to beg for James’s life, Kendall isn’t sure what he’ll do. Mercy isn’t something the Games are well acquainted with. It’s not something he’s seen a whole lot of in his life, either.   
  
Fortunately, the baker does not beg; what he does is infinitely stranger. He gives Kendall a neatly wrapped package of cookies, fresh from the oven.   
  
Kendall frowns at them, questioning. He’s done a good trade with the man over the past few years, mostly in squirrels and the odd groundhog, but they aren’t buddies. They don’t shoot the breeze or hang out or interact much at all. This is weird.   
  
Mr. Diamond says, “I wanted you to know I’ll look in on your mom, and your sister. She’s a good kid.”  
  
Kendall knows the polite thing to do is to say thank you and then keep his mouth firmly shut. Questioning kindness isn’t proper. Yet he blurts, “Why would you do that?”  
  
Mr. Diamond opens his hands, self-conscious.  
  
“When my wife- James’s  mother- died,” he says carefully, “I thought my world had ended.”  
  
Kendall blinks. Okay, then. He thought James’s mom was the shrew at the bakery. Apparently, Mr. Diamond remarried.  
  
“James is…he’s…a lot like her. More than his brothers.” Kendall braces himself for the pleading. It never comes. “What you did out there was really brave.” The baker bites his lip, a gesture Kendall has seen James mirror at school a million times. Not that he’s ever been looking. “I wish my kids were half as dauntless.”  
  
Praise is not something Kendall expects or feels he deserves. Not from a man whose son he might have to kill, at least. He squirms. Mr. Diamond notices. “Take care of yourself, Kendall.”  
  
He does not tell him to make District Twelve proud, and he does not look back on the way out the door. But his assurances still make something inside Kendall relax, relief in his bones.  
  
His family has more friends than he initially thought.  
  
Carlos is last. He practically runs into the room, wild-eyed, frantic. He engulfs Kendall in a hug that may crush his bones. Between Carlos and Katie, Kendall will be going into the arena with internal bleeding.  
  
“It’s okay,” Kendall tells him, even though the lie isn’t any more convincing than it was when he told it to his baby sister.  
  
Carlos clutches him tighter, lifting Kendall off his feet. “I know it is, you bastard. You’re coming back. You _are_.”  
  
Everyone else seems better convinced of that than Kendall, but he doesn’t say so. He waits for his feet to touch the ground again, for Carlos’s breathing to calm. He tells the crown of Carlos’s head, “I should have run when you said.”  
  
“Told you so,” Carlos retorts, lowering him. He buries his face in Kendall’s neck. “I don’t want you to go.”  
  
“You’ll look in on Katie and my mom, right?”  
  
“Of course.” He’s trembling when he says it. Kendall hates that. Carlos has always been warm, solid. Safe. Now he is as insubstantial as starlight in Kendall’s arms.  
  
Carlos fits their bodies together, presses close. He’s hard against Kendall’s thigh. But they don’t have time. He kisses Kendall hard and quick, teeth scraping over Kendall’s lower lip. “You can win this. I know you can.”  
  
And that is their goodbye. The Peacekeepers burst through the door, ready to guide Carlos out with force if necessary. He goes without a struggle, but his head is held high and his muscles are pulled tight. Kendall hopes he doesn’t actually take it upon himself to punch one of them.  
  
Miss Collins reappears, her turquoise lips shiny wet, her eyes glimmering too. “I hate goodbyes. So emotional.”  
  
She piles Kendall and James into a car that will take them to the train station. Kendall has never been inside one before.  
  
He is occupied by all the levers and buttons.  
  
He is occupied by the way James’s thigh presses into his.  
  
Miss Collins babbles endlessly about what a treat it will be for them to see the Capitol.  
  
She makes it sound like it’s some magical place filled with sunshine and rainbows instead of the last city they will see before they die.  



	3. The Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Gonna come," he warns breathlessly. James gives the tiniest nod, hair sticking to his forehead, eyes brightbrightbright like that smile of his, chasing away all the dim. Kendall lets go shoved as deep down James's as he can get, shuddering long and hard as he paints the inside of that pretty throat white.

At the train platform, James and Kendall are forced to wave to a crew of cameramen. Kendall doesn’t quite manage a smile. He already hates flashbulbs and shark-smiles.  
  
Every time he licks his lips, he can taste Lucy and Carlos on them. It doesn’t help. He’s happy for the refuge inside the train. At least until he sees what lies inside it.  
  
Opulent is not a word that Kendall has ever had a reason to use before. He’s barely past the entryway before he knows it is the right word to use here. Lush couches. Glossy wood paneling. Tables laden with crystal and china. Pastries that could fit in the palm of his hand. They look like small, delicate flowers, and probably taste just as sweet. A steaming buffet that makes the pit of Kendall’s stomach roar. There is enough food to feed the entire District for a year or more, and as far as he can tell, it seems to exist for the sole purpose of _supper_.  
  
Miss Collins steeples her fingers together. “This all looks delicious. Let’s get you boys settled.”  
  
Kendall does not want to be settled. He is whisked off to a bedroom bigger than his entire house all the same. He has a new wardrobe full of clothes softer and finer than anything back home. He keeps his father’s old outfit on. There is comfort in the rough sewn hems. There is home in the damp front of the shirt where Katie buried her head or the collar where Carlos rested his face.  
  
He walks back to the dining car exactly the same as he left it. Miss Collins, dressed in a purple dress complete with pink accents now, disapproves. Her eyes twitch. But all she says is, “Come, eat.”  
  
James is already seated, wearing a simple black outfit straight from his own Capitol wardrobe. He is eating soup, shoveling it into his mouth like he’s never had it before. When Kendall scrapes out a chair and sits, James smiles at him, tenuous at best. He asks Miss Collins, “Where’s Gustavo?”  
  
“Why do you care?” Kendall snaps.  
  
As far as his first conversation with the boy with the bread goes, he thinks they’re off to a fabulous start. “He’s our mentor.?”  
  
“He’s a drunk.”  
  
Miss Collins purses her lips.  
  
“I can go find him. I imagine he’s in the bar car.” She gives them this stern expression, like she thinks they might try to steal the silverware, but her voice stays peppy. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”  
  
The second she’s gone, James mumbles through the slurped soup, “She hates us.”  
  
Kendall pokes a pastry. He wonders if it might rear up and bite him. It just smells so good. “She doesn’t. She’s worried we’ll mess up her impending promotion.”  
  
James's eyebrows furrow. "How would we do that?"  
  
Kendall decides to take a chance. He stuffs the tiny pastry in his mouth. It tastes like heaven. He closes his eyes, blissed out. Through bites, he theorizes, "Flipping off a camera man...getting in a fist fight...Dying too soon."  
  
James watches him, eyes dark, expression strange. Kendall supposes he shouldn't have brought up the d-word. James probably means to live.  
  
That's too bad for him.  
  
Kendall made a promise to his baby sister, and he's never once disappointed her. Even if he has no idea how to win, even if his chances are slim to none; he will try. He will eviscerate the boy sitting across from him if he has to, past kindness be damned.  
  
Kendall picks up another pastry and shoves it into his mouth. He ignores the way James stares. The food is too good to worry about his judgey face. Buttery crust melts on Kendall's tongue, sweet fruit beneath igniting his taste buds. The gunshot click of Miss Collins' heels alert him that their conversation is about to have an audience anyway.  
  
Gustavo is at Miss Collins' back, red faced and sweating. He plunks down in an ornate arm chair and begins scooping samples from every dish onto his plate. Miss Collins sits more daintily, sinking into her seat with a sigh. "Delightful. We're all here."  
  
Kendall grunts his acknowledgment. Gustavo does the same. James is the one who manages a charming smile. "Mr. Rocque, sir. It's nice to finally-"  
  
"Shut your yap, kid. I'm working here." Gustavo waves his hand across the expanse of his plate like a king surveying his realm. "Where's the bacon?"  
  
James is undeterred. "I was wondering, uh, sir, in the cornucopia, what our plan of action should be-"  
  
Gustavo laughs, loud, raucous, and completely lacking humor.  
  
"I'd recommend living." He burps. "Now, syrup?"  
  
James's face falls. Kendall doesn't care. He _doesn't_. Except he does.  
  
Gustavo eats like he's never seen food before, which isn't true. He was the victor of his own Games, years and years before Kendall was even a twinkle in his parents' eyes. Since his victory, he's known boundless wealth. It shows in his waistline. And yet he gobbles down his dinner as if he thinks someone might try to take it away from him. Miss Collins watches in abject horror.  
  
Meanwhile she has nothing but praise for Kendall and James. "Your manners are much better than last year's Tributes. Savages, the both of them."  
  
Last year's Tributes were skinny Seam kids who probably never had full stomachs for their entire, piteous lives. Their deaths in the Games took place seconds in. It was hailed as pathetic by Capitol commentators, who preferred more sportsmanship in their bloodbaths.  
  
Kendall is repulsed, his fork stilling en route to his mouth. James looks like he's swallowed a skunk scent sac. Like they've planned it, the two of them drop their utensils and begin to eat with their hands, wiping the grease afterwards straight onto the tablecloths. Miss Collins gives them a pained grimace.  
  
Gustavo simply smirks.  
  
James recovers his courage somewhere around dessert. He again prompts, "The cornucopia?"  
  
He is eager to learn, like a kid at school. He is waiting for the kind of advice that will save his life. Instead, Gustavo snorts, taking a sip of his drink; some amber thing that smells like the oil they use to light the lamps down in the mines. He slams his free hand down on the table, rattling the china. "Look, kid. You've got about as much chance of making it out of that arena as a dog does of escaping the Hob. Do yourself a favor and resign yourself to a death that hopefully isn't too slow or too painful."  
  
James crumples completely, this time, folding in on himself. What Kendall has known since the moment Miss Collins called Katie's name is finally hitting him. They're going to die. They're probably both going to die. The idea seems to be crushing all the air from his lungs.  
  
Kendall's hand moves before he knows what he's doing, a butter knife slick in his palm one second, driven millimeters the webbed skin between Gustavo's splayed fingers the next. The knife slices right through the silk tablecloth and into the surface beneath.  
  
Miss Collins squeaks in utter indignation. "That. Is. Mahogany!"  
  
Mahogany, like Katie's hair. Kendall twists the knife, splintering wood.  
  
This certainly hasn't helped endear Kendall to their Capitol chaperone.  
  
Across the table, James stares. His face is inscrutable. Is that awe or horror written there, in the circle of his irises?  
  
Gustavo, to his credit, doesn't even flinch. He says, "Maybe you won't go as quick as your friend here. Spunk can't hurt." He lifts his hand, conducting a quick check for blood. "Tomorrow morning. Well discuss all your little Tribute fears."  
  
"Why not now?" James asks, recovering his wits. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I can't enjoy my evening cordial surrounded by _hostility_. I'll be in my room. Don't come looking." Gustavo wobbles to his feet. After an irresolute pause he grabs for the bottle of his fire water. "I'm taking this."  
  
"No one else wants it," Miss Collins mutters. It's the rudest thing Kendall has heard leave her lips. She begs off shortly after Gustavo's departure, appalled by their table manners and worn out from all the Reaping Day excitement.  
  
Poor Miss Collins. Her job must be exhausting. Kendall really sympathizes.  
  
Only not at all.  
  
"Do we clean all this up?" James asks, gesturing to the table. Capitol attendants save Kendall the trouble of answering, whisking away their plates, licked clean. James beams. "Oh. We have manservants now. Just what I always wanted."  
  
Kendall can't tell if he's serious. He laughs, full of vitriol. "We can spend our last few days on Earth living like kings."  
  
"Don't do that," James replies immediately.  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Talk like you've got no chance. You've got a chance, okay? More than me."  
  
Kendall wants to argue, but it's been a long, long day. He's sick of people trying to convince him not to give up when he's barely had time to think about whether giving up is something he wants to do. Which it isn't. He promised Katie. And Carlos. Just. He has a right to a little fatalism, doesn't he?  
  
He scrambles to his feet, annoyed, faking a yawn. "Whelp. I ate too much."  
  
"Bed? I'll walk you." James jumps up.  
  
"Not necessary."  
  
"I want to." Kendall figures James wants to study the competition, or whatever. That's fine. He should probably get a move on that too. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his dad's trousers, leading James out of the dining car. He worries about getting a knife to the back, briefly, but Tributes aren't allowed to fight before the Games. It still happens, occasionally, when the perpetrator thinks he or she won't get caught, but a wound from a butter knife would certainly invite suspicion.  
  
James doesn't seem keen on the idea of making any sudden moves anyway. He stops in the corridor connecting one train car to the other, the ground wiggling beneath them. "Kendall?"  
  
"Yeah?" Kendall stops. He’s reluctant to turn around, worried that this will be the conversation he thought he was doomed to have with James's dad. He isn't going to be able to stand it if James asks for an alliance in the arena, for kindness that by all rights, he deserves. Kendall owes him gratitude that is years past due, and it really is the opportune time for James to cash in. Whether the question is asked in earnest or it is just a strategy to earn Kendall's trust, Kendall will have to say yes. He's never had a debt he hasn't at least tried to pay.  
  
Slowly, James says, "If we’re going to die, shouldn’t we just do whatever we want?"  
  
Through the window behind him, the landscape of the countryside Kendall has never really seen outside of TV whirrs by. It's annoying, because Kendall isn’t paying attention to this whole new world out there. His entire body is focused on James, heart pounding in his ears. He’s poised to run, poised to fight, maybe, even though the very act would be frowned upon. He reconsiders his earlier assessment of James's intentions. Maybe he is concealing a weapon. Here, in this tiny, enclosed space, James could easily make sure Kendall sustains some tiny, debilitating injury that would kill his chances at winning. He’s big enough. Scary enough.  
  
“Such as?” Kendall asks with a dry mouth, because he can’t think of anything he particularly wants to do other than live through the next few weeks.  
  
James tilts his head, considering. And it’s uncanny, because Kendall can see James already knows what it is he wants. James says it soft, but he's sure to enunciate. “You could kiss me.”  
  
 _What_?  
  
“Is that a joke?”  
  
“Do I look like I’m in the mood to make jokes?” James gets up in Kendall's airspace, the small corridor hindering Kendall's ability to escape. James thumbs the skin beneath his cheekbone. “Kiss me. Or I’ll kiss you.”  
  
No, but, _what_?  
  
“What makes you think I’d let you?”  
  
Kendall doesn’t not want it, he supposes. James is half the reason Kendall’s still around to play the Capitol’s dumb Games. He’s a hero, in a way. He certainly is handsome, too. He never outgrew his sooty eyelashes or the sweet pout of his lips.  
  
Kendall can still taste Lucy and Carlos on his mouth, can still feel Carlos in the bruises on his hips, but other people are the last thing on his mind. James takes a step closer, still wobbly on his train-legs. Kendall can't move, still as a buck in the woods. It’s an apt analogy; he almost feels hunted.  
  
He wonders if this will be what the Games are like. But he knows it’s different. The way James is watching him, it isn’t at all like how Kendall watches prey. There is something else at play here, deeper, barely restrained. More like yearning.  
  
Quietly, James asks, “Can I?”  
  
Unsure of himself, Kendall nods. James is gentle about it, at first, fitting his mouth tight over Kendall’s and holding it there, like he just wants to savor it. Kendall has to angle himself up, to wrap his arms around James’s neck to get him to move his mouth, to slide his lips and then it is less like the kisses Kendall knows and more like a caress.  
  
He’s never been with anyone who’s not Carlos. James is bigger, broader, foreign beneath his hands. He tastes different too, softer and more bittersweet, somehow. Maybe it’s the chocolate fondue they had for dessert.  
  
The kisses turn deeper, wetter, with an edge of desperation. James uses his hands to pull at Kendall's jaw, his mouth opening wide to give James's tongue better access. The train hits a bump, rattles Kendall's knees. His hips glance against James's with fleeting friction.  
  
James is hard. Kendall doesn't expect it, wasn't looking for much more than the promised kiss. He gasps into James's mouth, and James catches it in his throat. He throws the sound back out to Kendall in one long, erotic moan. His arms wrap tight around Kendall's waist, pulling their bodies flush, and fuck, _yes_ , there. The shape of James's dick is a stiff outline against his own.  
  
Their slacks are both thin, the cloth barely obscuring their heat or the things they want to do with it. Kendall runs his fingers along James's biceps. They're forged in fucking iron. He could probably snap someone's neck with ease. The idea makes him hotter, because somewhere deep inside he recognizes that what he’s doing is beyond fucked. You don't bend over and beg for someone who needs you to die if they're to live, but that is exactly what Kendall wants to do. He digs crescent moons against James's skin, rutting against him, tongue fighting for dominance. He scratches down, and James's hands grab for his ass, pulling Kendall straight onto his toes so that he can suck and bite at his lower lip.  
  
Kendall is pinned between James and the shaky train wall. It trembles through his body, quakes all the thoughts right out of his head. He circles his hips back into James's hands, letting him squeeze. He likes those hands, big and rough and warm, like he's just shuffled bread from an oven. He wants to feel them on his bare skin. He licks out at James's teeth and is rewarded with a kiss that crushes all the air from his lungs.  
  
Kendall breaks away, needing oxygen, and James busies himself biting a hickey into Kendall's jaw. If one of the Capitol attendants walks in on them now, they'll look like they've been fighting, red, sweaty and bruised. James's palms smooth around from Kendall's butt to his sides to his front, just above the strain of his cock. He thumbs open the clasp of Kendall's pants, and Kendall slumps back against the corridor.  
  
"Wait, wait," he pleads.  
  
James doesn't. He sinks to his knees, boneless, something straight out of one of Kendall's wet dreams. Yeah, he has those, sometimes, when he's not bone tired from hunting or school or trying to keep his family afloat. They usually feature boys like Carlos, faceless miners' sons in coveralls. Sometimes it _is_ Carlos, grinning wickedly up at Kendall before he takes him in his mouth. Other times his fantasies are taller, stronger, broader. James-shaped, but never James, because even Kendall's imagination knows better than to objectify the merchant class.  
  
But James seems to want to be objectified, seems to wish he was the name Kendall bit into his pillows in the still of the night while he tried not to wake his mom or Katie.  
  
"You really want me to wait?" James asks; a challenge. He breathes hot across the zipper of Kendall's slacks, pressing his index and middle finger approximately over the head of his dick. James presses down like he is checking Kendall's fluttering pulse, counting it off in his head. His lips move, silently reciting the numbers, and Kendall shudders.  
  
"No."  
  
James chuckles, low. His smile slices through the dim corridor and casts light on the gloomy evening.  He catches one of Kendall's hands and tugs it towards himself, pushing back the neat fold of his shirt cuff. James takes a moment to admire the knotty tangle of bracelets that nestle on Kendall's wrist.  
  
One is an ancient gift from Katie, made long before their father's death; barely more than a thread and a bead, now. One is a thin leather band of his dad's. And one is from Carlos, a gift from their last Reaping day. It hangs by threads. Kendall never takes any of them off. He supposes he'll have to, in the arena, but for now they are comfort. They are home.  
  
James sees that. He presses a reverent kiss just below them, at the junction of Kendall's wrist and hand. His lips linger there. All the while, his other palm sneaks beneath the threadbare cloth of Kendall's slacks and his underclothes beneath. James touches Kendall's cock, skin against skin, and Kendall goes rigid. His free fingers scrabble for something to hold onto, but there is nothing other than smooth Capitol train. He sags back, head firm against the curved surface.  
  
Mouth detaching from Kendall's wrist, James pulls him free. He stares, openly, the barely-there mood lighting illuminating just enough that Kendall is embarrassed. He forgot what it was like, being seen for the first time. With Carlos, Kendall's first forays into nudity had been needy and quick and over too fast. The careful admiration and cataloguing of each other's bodies came with time. James's appreciation is more gradual. He drinks Kendall in with his eyes, analyzes every blushing inch of him, aching, wanting. Kendall has too much time to doubt, to feel mortification flame the tip of his ears. He's trying to figure out a diplomatic way to beg off when James slowly, deliberately kisses a bead of precum settled at the tip of his dick.  
  
That brush of skin is something that radiates out to Kendall's extremities, molten hot. He nudges against James's lips, looking for a way in because he is right there, right on the threshold of that mouth that covered his, and he wants to see if James is as sweet on his dick as he was on Kendall's lips.  
  
James grins, bright, pleased. Kendall gets a little movement from that, smears clear across James's perfect teeth, and god. No one else in District Twelve has teeth as white as his, except maybe Lucy. Kendall thinks his cum might actually be ivory in comparison.  
  
James's mouth gapes, just a smidge, enough that he's got a few millimeters of Kendall pressed against the tip of his tongue. He licks out, traces shapes- that might as well be the seal of Panem for all Kendall knows- around the slit. His mind blanks out, overloaded on hot _wet_. He tries to push further into the taut 'o' of James's lips, and when James won't let him he makes a displeased sound, hisses out, "Cocktease."  
  
James actually looks offended by the accusation. He opens wide, wide enough for Kendall to seat himself in the cave of James's mouth. _There_. He has to moan, just a little, a thready sound lost beneath the rumble of the train wheels.  
  
Kendall fits like he belongs inside of James, the curve behind his teeth a perfect fit for the head of his dick. James slides his tongue forward, molding it to the underside of Kendall, and that's even better, slicker, dirtier. Kendall experiences the briefest flash of fear, the vague idea that James could bite down niggling deep in his brain. In the space of a few hours, his life has turned into a detailed analysis of all the ways he's vulnerable, and he is very, very vulnerable here. He claws at the train wall, hating how he hasn't been able to think of anything but blood all day.  
  
Even with a pretty fantasy on his knees, Kendall's still wondering what he could use as a weapon if things go wrong.  
  
Like he can read it on Kendall's face, James digs his fingers into Kendall's calves, massaging upupup to his thighs while he sucks him downdowndown into his throat. His lips stretch bright, red, obscene around Kendall's dick, and all the bad thoughts flee. There is only James, lips wrapped around the base of Kendall's cock, the entire length of him swallowed from view.  
  
James slides back, putting on a show, watching Kendall from beneath hooded eyes. His clever tongue dances, learning the weight and the taste of Kendall while he alternates between squeezing his eyelids tightly shut and watching the landscape fly by the train windows. James is doing this too slow, taking his time when Kendall wants fast and hard and brutal. He has to wind his fingers in James's hair to guide him forward at the pace he wants, to force himself back inside the soft, sinful hollow of damp heat.  
  
He pulls at the roots of James's hair, creating the rhythm he needs, occasionally glimpsing the shine of saliva coating his dick before it disappears into James's spit-wet lips. Kendall gasps for air, but there's not enough in the entire train to fill his lungs, not with James working over him, lower lip pressing to his balls. James gazes insolently up at Kendall, who can't do much more than groan helplessly, louder than the rails, now. He is captivated by the hunger in James's eyes, so different than what he's used to. He fucks into his mouth, fisting his hair, and James passively goes with it.  
  
Every time he sucks down his cheeks hollow, bones high and lined with night. One of his hands sneakily moves up to cup Kendall's balls, toying them against each other while Kendall uses his mouth like there's not a person attached to it. That's the part that makes his dick stiff to the point of painful. Kendall's the one who is at James's mercy, and yet the guy sits obediently on his knees, big, strong, tough, and totally _owned_. What's more is that James likes it, hums contentedly around Kendall's dick the harder and deeper he goes.  
  
His other arm moves, no longer bruising Kendall's inner thigh with attention; he's palming over himself, turned on by what? By this? Kendall wants to see. "You can- _fuck_ , you can touch yourself."  
  
James does, rushes to yank open his own zipper and fuck into his own fist. His upper lip glistens with sweat and saliva and Kendall's precum, and that's what Kendall focuses on, that and the shadowy movement of James's hand. He's burning up inside, blood turned to lava, lungs constricted in his chest. His heart pounds beneath his ribcage and he pounds into James and James just sucksswallows _hums_ in harmony with the slap of his own skin.  
  
One of his fingers slides back along Kendall's perineum, as far as he can go what with the restriction of clothes, and there is spit dripping down onto Kendall’s balls. He is soaked with it, soaked with fire and sweat and the way James laps at him behind those obedient lips. He bucks forward, back, smooths his hand down to cup James's neck and twists his fingers in the short hairs there.  
  
"Gonna come," he warns breathlessly. James gives the tiniest nod, hair sticking to his forehead, eyes brightbrightbright like that smile of his, chasing away all the dim. Kendall lets go shoved as deep down James's as he can get, shuddering long and hard as he paints the inside of that pretty throat white.  
  
He can feel it when James follows, the way he goes tense and tries to keep from biting down, the wet that ends up on the hem of Kendall's dad's slacks. And even when it's over, for both of them, they stand stock still, trying to figure out what their next move is.  
  
James climbs to his feet, more unsteady now than he was before. Kendall finally catches a glimpse of the outline of his cock before he tucks it away. He watches openly, because that's what James did to him.  
  
"See you in the morning?" James asks eventually, voice raspy. Kendall isn't sure what to say, so he nods.  
  
When he's sure James is gone, he slumps down against the floor. His hand accidentally lands in the tiny pool of cum James left, and Kendall stares at it, turning his fingers this way and that until it dries against his skin. He does not once look out the window.  
  
He thinks maybe he's found more fascinating scenery.


	4. The Roof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is movement and life and sound. He cannot touch himself too fast, too hard, cannot move too much, or Districts One and Two might hear. He can only thrust shallowly into the rough, tight circle of his fingers and trytrytry not to be too loud.

Over breakfast the next morning, they catch the recap of the Reapings in other Districts. Miss Collins keeps up a running commentary on each new Tribute, berating them for skinniness or admiring their strength. Gustavo has little input other than to snore, loudly, into his eggs. His promise of advice is unfulfilled. And James is quiet, still, the only indication he is even alive the warmth of his ankle where it rests against Kendall's.  
  
Like they're friends.  
  
Kendall tries pushing James away, but all that earns him is a brief foot scuffle until Miss Collins breaks out her glare and they end up in that exact same position. It doesn't do much to improve Kendall's mood. Between the low, unfamiliar hum of the train and James, Kendall's sleep the night before was fitful, haunted by nightmares of his father and previous arenas. During the seventy third Hunger Games, the Victor bashed in the final Tribute's head with a brick. Kendall keeps seeing it replayed like a ghostly image on the flat screen, where the faces flash by so quickly that he barely has time to take them in.  
  
A dimpled girl from District One named Mercedes who practically dives on stage.  
  
An attractive brunette duo from District Two who look like they could be siblings.  
  
A boy from three with a pinched face named Wayne.  
  
A girl from Four who vaguely resembles a mermaid, like in the stories that Kendall’s mom used to tell.  
  
A coltish, doe-esque girl with an upturned nose from Five.  
  
An almond eyed boy from Eight.  
  
A tiny, red haired boy from District Eleven who no one volunteers for.  
  
And them. Him and James. It looks different on TV, what he did. Less an act of desperation and more one of impressive strength.  
  
“That was a very brave thing you did,” Miss Collins says, taking a sip of her tea.  
  
“Brave?” Gustavo scoffs. “More like stupid.”  
  
James nods his assent, knocking their ankles together. Kendall is too busy thinking to care. He has no idea what his strategy will be. Will he be brutal? Clever? Sneaky? One year a Tribute from District Eight, Kelly Wainwright, pretended she was weak so that the strongest in her arena were content to pick each other off first. When the Tributes were down to the final three, Kelly revealed that she was vicious with a knife. Kendall’s not sure he could adequately pull off that act; he’s already bigger than half the Tributes, better fed from his days hunting in the woods, muscled from all the time he spends on the prowl. Sure, he’s not built as impressively as James, but he’s not pushover.  
  
He’s still mulling over it when the train rolls into a tunnel, dark cramped space that stretches on for miles. Kendall's in the middle of changing, his shirt half over his head, but he can feel the shift. His chest cramps, lungs tight. Fear trickles up his spine. It’s as bad as the mines back home. Worse, because if the mountainside collapses on the train there's a chance they'll live a few days, stuck in total darkness until the air runs out and they asphyxiate. He can't breathe until they're out, the tunnel opening into clear blue and a skyline that steals his breath away.  
  
So this is the Capitol.  
  
Kendall has seen it before, on TV, but all that useless beauty looks different up close. Face to face with the sweeping grace of skyscrapers, gilded fountains, and domed roofs, he is small, insignificant, and so, so captivated. _Inside these buildings_ , he thinks, _are people who want me dead_.  
  
The idea does not lessen his awe.  
  
Kendall makes his way to the dining car just as the train pulls into the station, which bustles with people. Even though the thick glass of the window, Kendall can hear them. They scream his and James’s names. Idly, Gustavo comments, “Must be the first ones here.”  
  
Miss Collins perks up. “Then we’ll make the best impression!”  
  
Kendall doesn’t get how they can be first in when they’ve come from the farthest away. He wants to ask, but Gustavo barks, “Dogs. Time to meet the wolves.”  
  
They’re ushered out into a crowd of people who smell like a garden party of roses and freesia and lavender. It clogs Kendall’s throat, makes him choke. He loses sight of James and Gustavo and Miss Collins in the sea of color; men with feather eyelashes and women with skin as green as spring twigs, children with powdered pompadours and one creature who looks more feline than human. Capitol fashion is every bit as terrifying as Miss Collins’ bizarre appearance promised.  
  
Kendall gets jabbed in the back with a camera lens, his crew prodding him forward. He refuses to move, standing on tip toe until he catches sight of the sun reflecting off James’s hair, gold-brown and the only normal color for miles. James turns back and flashes Kendall a smile, waving him forward.  
  
Although they’re barely more than strangers, Kendall finds comfort in it. He has not been left to face the wolves alone. He weaves through jewel toned flesh towards the boy with the bread, ignoring the way the Capitol fawns over him, people reaching out to brush his skin.  
  
For the next few weeks, Kendall Knight is a superstar. Great. Just what he never wanted. He hurries to catch up, dodging the arm that James tries to place around his shoulders. He is mindful of the cameras, aware that comfort or no, he and James are merely temporary allies. Not friends or anything else, no matter how great his mouth felt on Kendall’s dick.  
  
Uncertainty flashes lightning quick across James’s face, gone before the camera crew can pick it up. But Kendall sees it, and wonders if he is supposed to. What exactly is James’s strategy?  
  
"Hurry the hell up,” Gustavo calls at them from the entrance to the training center, face red, “It’s time for a martini.”  
  
“What’s a martini?” James asks in a low voice. Kendall shakes his head. He reckons it’s something alcoholic and foul.  
  
Fortunately, Kendall does not get a chance to find out.  
  
Unfortunately, it’s because a trio of taloned girls whisk him off to be _beautified_. Miss Collins’s words. The girls are Kendall’s prep team, weirdly all named Jennifer. They’re meant to make Kendall aesthetically pleasing to the Capitol crowd.  
  
The next few hours are a blur of pain and boredom. Kendall is forced to strip bare. He’s self conscious about it, at first, because his body has always been his own. Embarrassment flames his cheeks. But the Jennifers barely spare a glance for his junk, forcing Kendall to bathe in three different oily concoctions. All the while, they chatter endlessly at him.  
  
“God, haven’t you heard of manscaping?” One gripes, gold tattoos stretching dramatically over her furrowed brow.  
  
The second, dyed lavender, stares, dismayed, at his eyebrows.  
  
The third, covered in pink ribbons and gold powder, demands to know if he actually lives in the dirt because, “Your cuticles are gnarly. I. Am. So. Grossed. Out.”  
  
Kendall wants to hate them, these frivolous girls whose only purpose is to ensure he goes to his death handsomely. But. Well. It’s kind of hard? They’re shallow and annoying, and Kendall wishes they all had muzzles, but they also are the first people Kendall’s encountered in the past two days who haven’t treated him like he’s special. They do not look at him like he is doomed to die and they do not worship the ground he walks on. If anything, they act like Kendall is merely an object, barely even there. He stops worrying that he’s naked, maybe because of that, or maybe because he’s never really had the chance to bed a girl before. He rolls his eyes through their meaningless, mindless chiding, and eventually they turn to more interesting topics, like parties. Kendall has never been to a party before, but listening in, he can’t imagine he’d like them.  
  
Except for the dancing. That doesn’t sound bad. Back home, during Harvest, he likes to dance around the bonfires with Carlos, spinning wild and free, hollering at the top of his lungs because it’s the only time he can. He has to be careful, then, because a holler is not very different from a scream.  
  
Kendall is so lost in his memories that he nearly misses it when the Jennifers fall quiet. A boy, only a few years older than him, stands in the doorframe. At first Kendall thinks he is a servant, because he is dressed simply, in black. Then he realizes, “You’re my stylist.”  
  
The boy’s lips curve. “I’m Dak. Pleasure.”  
  
Kendall doesn’t know about that. Stylists truss Tributes up like prized turkeys and parade them around in the streets for the Capitol to gawk at. But Dak doesn’t look like the stylists Kendall’s seen on TV. His only concession to fashion is the gold liner that rims his eyelashes, sparkling like perhaps it is real precious metal.  
  
The Jennifers chorus creepily, “Hi Dak.”  
  
They twitter excitedly amongst themselves, adoration clearly written across their features. A small smile flirts with Dak’s lips, teasing back and forth.  
  
“Girls,” he greets. He turns his attention back to Kendall. “You looked different on TV. Taller. More courageous, maybe.”   
  
Kendall puffs out his chest, trying to inflate his body. It doesn’t come close to working. He deflates, folding in on himself. He spits, “Sorry to disappoint you.”  
  
Dak pushes off the doorframe and enters the room. The Jennifers flock to him, seamlessly turning into an entourage. Kendall tenses as they approach, abruptly aware that he isn’t wearing a stitch. Dak lifts his hands to cradle Kendall’s face. Quietly, he says, “I like a blank canvas.”  
  
Kendall is actually not sure if it’s supposed to be an insult or not. He is sure that Dak’s hands are big and warm against his jaw. Defiantly, he tries to concentrate on something else, like the slitted cat eyes of one of the Jennifers. He doesn’t need his body to betray him.  
  
Last night, with James, Kendall had thought that he had nothing to lose. In the harsh light of day and the Capitol, guilt has crept under his skin like a fever. He hasn’t been able to shake it. In the space of a few hours he went from taking it on all fours from his best friend to kissing a pretty girl, back to Carlos, and then to James. It’s unfair; Kendall doesn’t owe Carlos anything, but he feels like he does. Kendall wonders if Carlos tasted strawberries on his lips during that goodbye kiss, even if Lucy’s gift had been unwanted, unprovoked, and totally innocent. Would Carlos understand? Would he understand if a Capitol camera had caught James swallowing Kendall down? The least Kendall can do, here, is keep himself under control.  
  
 _I am not a sexual deviant_ , he chants obediently in his head.  
  
Dak’s grins like he can read Kendall’s mind. Mildly, he says, “Girls, you can leave.”  
  
“No, what?” Kendall panics. “They can stay!”  
  
Or maybe they shouldn’t stay. He’s heard rumors about crazy Capitol orgies.  
  
“Relax,” Dak murmurs, running his fingers down Kendall’s throat. He’s attractive. Confident. Like James, but cleaner. There is no coal dust under his nails, no baking flour in his hair. Despite himself, Kendall’s dick jerks in interest.  
  
"Go," Dak prompts the Jennifers a second time. The Jennifer with the tattoos stands on her toes to plan a kiss on Dak's cheek. Right in front of Kendall's face, Dak catches it with his lips. He fits their mouths together, tongue probing until the girl in his arms moans. The others watch, waiting their turn. Kendall has no idea where to look or what to do, so he digs his fingertips into his knees and sits there, naked and horrified and a little bit wistful.  
  
Dak pops off the last Jennifer's mouth and one by one, the girls filter out of the prep room. He gives his full attention to Kendall, but Kendall no longer wants it. What the hell kind of place is he in?  
  
"If you try to kiss me, I'm going to punch you in the face," Kendall warns preemptively.  
  
"No worries." Dak holds up his hands. "You're not my type."  
  
Kendall slumps back, relieved. He was beginning to think he had some freakish Tribute pheromone thing going on. His legs fall open, naturally, and Dak glances down.  
  
"I wouldn't worry about that, either." He appears to seriously be considering poking Kendall's boner, swaying at half-mast. "Death makes people horny."  
  
Kendall is immediately wary. Not-Dak's-type his foot. "Is that your way of extending an invitation to your twisted foursome?"  
  
"Merely an observation. You couldn't handle those girls."  
  
Kendall reflects on the Jennifers' mind numbing gossip. "I wouldn't want to."  
  
Steadily, Dak replies, "Trust me. You want to."  
  
Kendall gulps. "Aren't you supposed to be styling me?"  
  
"Not today, Knight." Dak whips out a tape measure. "Have to make sure your outfit for tomorrow is perfectly tailored."  
  
Tomorrow. The Tribute parade. It is the first of three events where the Capitol has the opportunity to get to know the Games' contestants. It is also Kendall's least favorite. Stylists are encouraged to costume their charges in outfits that thematically represent each District. Twelve's stylists often have the unfortunate habit of dressing tributes in hard hats and coveralls.  
  
Or worse.  
  
Everyone remembers the year when one silly idiot thought coal dust constituted clothing.  
  
"I don't want to be naked," Kendall informs Dak.  
  
Dak grins, measuring Kendall's inseam. "Too late."  
  
Kendall decides he's really uncomfortable with Dak's proximity to his dick. He scoots back on the impersonal metal prep table. "I meant tomorrow."  
  
Dak slaps his knee, chiding, "Stop squirming, it's unbecoming. Tomorrow you'll be stunning. Aubrey and I have something special planned."  
  
Inferring that Aubrey is James's stylist, Kendall retorts, "No one looks stunning in a hard hat."  
  
Dak's expression is neutral, but his eyes narrow just enough that his gold eyeliner straightens into long, sharp lines. "You don't trust me. I get that. So I'll tell you what everyone else in this building already knows. I? Am a genius. This is my first time in the Games, and I plan on being impressive."  
  
Kendall opens his mouth, protests on his lips. No one who works for the Capitol can be a genius. Dak barrels on, "I don't need you to like me. I don't need your trust. But I do need you to understand that I am very, very good at what I do. After tomorrow, everybody will want to know your name."  
  
Kendall bristles. "If you're so fantastic, why'd they give you District Twelve?"  
  
It's a valid question. No one wants dirty, dusty, starving miners' kids. The best stylists, chaperones, and sponsors always go to One or Two or Four, where the people eat better, and everyone is gorgeously photogenic. Always.  
  
Dak beams. "I asked for Twelve. And you."  
  
Disbelief evident, Kendall demands, "Why?"  
  
Dak leans in close, breathes against Kendall's ear. In, out. In, out. Exhale, and, "You have fire in you. All you need is a spark."  
  
Kendall is stubborn. And mad. He wants Dak out of his face. He wants to go home. "You can tell all that from TV? You're right, you are impressive."  
  
"And you're an ass." Dak pats Kendall's cheek, drawing back a smidge. "You'll still be radiant."  
  
Sarcastically, Kendall bites out, "Yeah, yeah. Do we kiss now? Make a pact? Promise to rely only on each other?"  
  
Dak smirks. "Now I get rid of you for the evening. My adoring fans are waiting. Tomorrow, you'll shine. Whether you like it or not."  
  
"I'm thinking not." Kendall hops off the prep table, gathering up his clothes. Dak hit a nerve with his I'm-so-special speech. It's not like Kendall cares if the stupid Capitol knows his name.

\---

  
"You care," Gustavo tells him over dinner. They sit at a table laden with meats and cheeses and fruits Kendall has never even heard of, but Gustavo's sticking to his liquid diet. Kendall and James, meanwhile, are shoveling food into their mouths as fast as they can swallow. More than once, Kendall forgets to chew, gulping bites of this and that whole. It's all so _good_.  
  
Miss Collins has clearly reevaluated her opinion of their manners. She watches, caught somewhere between distaste and fascination, idly nursing her own bowl of soup. Her couture is red today, lips painted like flames. Kendall pauses mid-chew. Ugh. _Fire_.  
  
"No, I don’t think I do. Last I checked, neither did you."  
  
" _I_ don't care. Live. Die. Makes me no difference." Gustavo throws back some wine. "But. If you're interested in the former, then you want the Capitol dirtbags to know your name."  
  
"Gustavo!" Miss Collins scolds, "Language."  
  
"Fuck, what, fine. Capitol _citizens_ ," he corrects. "Only way to get sponsors."  
  
"Please. It doesn't matter what I do."  
  
It's true. No one wants to sponsor kids from District Twelve.  
  
James blows loudly on a chunk of steaming vegetable something before eating it. Through the mouthful, he mumbles, "You don't know that."  
  
"Uh, yeah I do. Whose job is it to get us sponsors?"  
  
Gustavo raises his hand.  
  
"And how many drinks have you had today?"  
  
The big man starts ticking off fingers, but he runs out of steam around seven.  
  
"A lot," He allows.  
  
Kendall smiles triumphantly, returning to his meal. James shakes his head. "I don't know what you're so happy about. It's like you want to die."  
  
"So what if I do?" Kendall stares up at the crystal chandelier over the table so that no one can read the fear on his face.  
  
Miss Collins full on gasps, covering her mouth with her hand.  James tsks, disgust blossoming across his features. He sets down his fork. "You know, after the Reaping, my stepmom told me how nice it was that District Twelve might finally have a Victor."  
  
Kendall's most recent bite of bouillabaisse burns down his throat. "Congrats?"  
  
"She meant you, idiot." James pushes his chair away from the table. "Lost my appetite."  
  
That can't be true. Kendall stares at him, challenging. Before he retreats to his room, James grabs his plate from the table. Ha.  
  
Over the sound of him stomping away, Miss Collins comments, "You boys are so...spirited."  
  
"High strung," Gustavo corrects. "You sure know how to make friends, sweetheart."  
  
"Don't call me that again." Kendall rejoins, glaring daggers.  
  
"I see you talking, but all I hear is bark, bark, yap, yap."  
  
Miss Collins slams her tiny fists down on the table, screeching, "That is enough! Gustavo, you owe it to these boys to give them your best. I'm going to bed." She frowns at the bottle of wine near Gustavo's plate. "And I'm taking that with me."  
  
Gustavo tries to defend his alcohol, but he's so far gone that the knife he tries to stab at Miss Collins hits James's empty chair instead.  
  
"Look what you did," he accuses Kendall.  
  
"Me? This is all your fault!"  
  
"I didn't start that little lovers' spat."  
  
"How did you-" Gustavo's mouth drops open, victorious, and Kendall bites off his words.  
  
It doesn't stop the raucous laughter that bubbles from Gustavo's lips. "You're fucking the pretty boy. That's rich."  
  
"I'm not fucking James."  
  
"Fine, he's fucking you. Same difference."  
  
"We're not-"  
  
"I'm not calling it _making love_ ," Gustavo chuckles into his glass.  
  
"That's not what I meant." Kendall sulks. He doesn't get why Gustavo isn't more upset about this. The arrangement Kendall and Carlos have is practically unheard of in District Twelve. It would cause a scandal, if anyone knew.  
  
"Calm your nuts. The Capitol is full of fashion slaves and free love. It might as well be called Queertopia."  
  
"You're not from the Capitol."  
  
"No judgment, mutt. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Or in this case, blow-"  
  
Kendall falls all over himself to stop the rest of that sentence. "Uhhhhnderstood!"  
  
Gustavo smirks. "Might even come in useful, this."  
  
Useful? Shit, _no_. Warily, Kendall inquires, "You're not going to tell anybody, right?"  
  
"Why shouldn't I? Got a girlfriend back in Twelve? Secret boyfriend?"  
  
Kendall has a Carlos and all that their odd friendship entails. That is enough. He nods.  
  
"I won't tell a soul." Gustavo promises. "Now. I'm going to wrangle some more wine from the kitchen before prissy bitchy Collins gets a chance to tell them to cut me off. You in?"  
  
"Maybe you should focus less on drinking and more on, I don't know, mentoring? Bet that would really get Miss C off your back."  
  
"Could save your skinny ass in the process, too." Gustavo considers. Kendall has no idea what he decides. He juts his chin at Kendall, grunts, and waddles off into the sunset. Or, more likely, to the kitchens.  
  
And Kendall? Kendall tries to sleep in the soft, downy comfort of his amazing new bed in the middle of his gigantic, amazing new room for all of five minutes before deciding that he's restless. The District Twelve suites are huge and elaborate and Kendall would trade them for home in a heartbeat. He figures he'll explore the other floors, but once Kendall is on the elevator, scanning his palm, he realizes he only has access to the roof and the District Twelve suites. The actual training stage of the training center is on lockdown under the guise of fairness, while the other Districts' suites are off limits to Tributes for more obvious reasons. It wouldn’t do if anyone's throat got slit in the middle of the night.  
  
Kendall can't stand the thought of hiding out in his extravagant bedroom or the finely furnished common area on the twelfth floor any longer. The elegance makes him feel small and dirty and helpless. He jabs the button for the roof, only one floor above. Fresh air can't hurt.  
  
He thinks being out in the open will help, but it doesn't. The lights of the Capitol outshine the stars. A halo of white-gold-red-orange envelops the city, drowning out anything natural. Kendall wants to claw his way into the night sky, just to make sure that the constellations he remembers are still there.  
  
The elevator slides closed behind him, barely audible. Kendall breathes deep. He longs for the scent of rich, damp earth. Instead, something flowery catches in his lungs. The air is thinner, too, harder to hold in.  
  
He'd heard it would be. The Capitol is seated high in a mountain range, near impossible to penetrate. It's why the rebels failed so hard. It's why the Games exist. Kendall can see majestic, snow-capped peaks in the distance. He hates them, fiercely.  
  
There is a noise, bars of music ringing in the air. Kendall stiffens. Each note echoes around him like the boom of Panem's anthem, taunting. But no, this is sweeter. It is more like the songs Carlos used to whistle on nights when District Twelve's electricity switched on and they found themselves on the wrong side of the fence. Kendall closes his eyes, transported.  
  
Carlos's arms are wrapped around him, and he sings straight into Kendall's ear. His voice melts like honey against Kendall's bones. He is lost in it, lost in the memory of the kisses that followed.  
  
The wind picks up.  
  
The music gets louder.  
  
Carlos is a million miles away.  
  
Kendall walks to the edge of the roof to see if the noise is coming from the city. He's so far up that all he can see is color, the people below as tiny as ants. Briefly, he entertains the idea of jumping. He bets he couldn't, even if he really wanted to. The Gamemakers probably have all kinds of safety protocols in place. Tributes are only allowed to die in front of a camera. He doesn't bother checking. He promised Katie he'd come back alive. He has to at least try to honor that.  
  
Kendall returns to his search for the mysterious song, chiming closer now. The source, he finds, is a string of objects dangling in the wind. It sits in the middle of a small, well tended garden, and it might be the ugliest thing Kendall has seen since his arrival this morning. The chime consists of all kinds of objects; metal and weathered glass and wooden reeds, shells and circuit boards and bits of malleable plastic. It’s an amalgamation of stuff from every District. How many Tributes have stood here, adding their own contribution to this monstrosity?  
  
It is hideous, but it is also beautiful, from the wind-powered melody to the symbolism behind it. This is the only remaining voice of the Tributes who have gone before him.  
  
Kendall likes the sentiment. He is in the middle of tying his three ratty bracelets onto the chime- he can't take them into the arena- when the night is broken by a protracted, breathy moan. Kendall reaches behind his back, instinctively searching out an arrow that is not there.  
  
Is someone injured? Or are they trying to intimidate him?  
  
Is it his business, either way? No. Kendall pads through the garden like he is stalking prey, the soft dirt muffling his footsteps. He'll return to the elevator and leave whoever it is to their own devices.  
  
His feet are traitorous. They lead him in the direction he does not want to go. Fortunately, no one is hurt. Kendall's shitty attempts at first aid will not be needed to save the day.  
  
Unfortunately, he was definitely not invited to this party. A dark haired boy has his head planted firmly between a blonde girl's legs. Her thighs are braced against his cheeks, her fingertips clawing into his short hair. She is the tribute from One, Kendall thinks. The one with the funny sounding name. He remembers her dimples and the white-gold curl of her hair from the morning's recaps.  
  
Kendall’s never seen a girl like her, flushed pink, in the throes of pleasure. For some reason he has a lot of trouble imagining it of the girls he knows, the dusty coal miner’s daughters or ever-scowling Lucy. He wonders what, exactly, the boy is doing with his tongue. Is he toying with her clit or trying to reach deeper? Does it curl inside her, her gentle, or thrust in, rough?  
  
Kendall’s got a hand against the front of his jeans before he knows he’s doing it, and fuck, Dak’s right. The idea of dying makes him horny. Does it matter? The couple is distracted, totally occupied with the taste and feel of each other. Kendall fingers open the front of his pants.  
  
He watches the way the boy’s stubble rubs up against the girl’s inner thighs, imagines what she tastes like on his tongue. Kendall shifts inside the cloth opening, takes his dick firm in hand. When the boy shifts around, fucks his fingers up inside the girl, Kendall allows himself to stroke down.  
  
"Logan," the girl pleads, voice raspy and low. She digs her nails into his scalp, makes him grunt into the sodden sweetness where he eats her out. Her body swallows the sound, one slender ankle pulling tight where it rests directly in the center of his spine.  
  
Logan is the tribute from District Two, Kendall remembers. He volunteered for the Reaping. His District partner did too. She was a pretty girl who charged up on stage like she'd been waiting to do so her entire life. She probably had. Training before the Games is a strict no-no, but One, Two, and Four never play by the rules. They churn out Career tributes who are inevitably the most dangerous contenders. Logan, from what Kendall can see, is not particularly big or strong, but on TV he'd mounted the stage with a quiet confidence that sent shivers down Kendall's spine. There might be plenty of things Logan sucks at, but killing people probably is not one of them.  
  
Kid seems pretty adept with his tongue, too. District One is shivering beneath his touch, moaning, "Fuck, fuck, Logan- there."  
  
She's naked, body silvered by the moonlight; all curves and muscle. Logan does something Kendall cannot see with his tongue or with his fingers, and One arches straight into the night, the graceful arc of her back forcing Kendall to twist up hard over the head of his dick. He bites a groan into the flesh of his own palm, unable to stop himself. The sexy tableau makes his cock ache in his hand, weeping tiny beads of precum that glisten in the artificial Capitol light.  
  
Kendall's seen pornographic pictures before, back at the Hob. They, like most things, were considered contraband. He never asked where they came from, but some of the images were so old that they must have hailed from the society before the Capitol. When Kendall was thirteen, he tried to trade for a photo of a woman, spread eagle, with her fingers crooked inside the pink-red of her pussy. In the end he couldn't afford it, but he'd thought of that picture- faded yellow with age and ripped at the edges- frequently.  
  
This is so much better.  
  
This is movement and life and sound. He cannot touch himself too fast, too hard, cannot move too much, or Districts One and Two might hear. He can only thrust shallowly into the rough, tight circle of his fingers and trytrytry not to be too loud.  
  
It's working out pretty well, actually, until there is a hot gust of breath against his ear.  
  
"I never pegged you for a pervert." Kendall freezes, gasping sharp into his palm. Arms wrap around his middle. "Don't stop 'cause of me. I was enjoying the show."  
  
"James," Kendall hisses.  
  
"Did I scare you?" James grazes his teeth across Kendall's earlobe, as if he has a right to. His chin rests against Kendall's shoulder. "You better hurry up. They're getting to the good part."  
  
He's right. Logan is pressing District One's legs apart with his hands, forcing them open so he can lick her shallow and quick. Kendall can hear it, now, can hear the wet click of Logan's tongue against her. Her shoulders roll, her breasts moving along with them, the slightest bounce. Kendall squeezes his dick. He wants to come. James is hard and warm against his back. District One and Two are hot and sweaty in front of him. He really fucking _needs_ to just let go.  
  
Still, he hesitates. James's arms lace around Kendall's middle, maneuvering down. "Need help?"  
  
"I think I got it," Kendall shoots back, thinking about James's lips wrapped around his cock. Shit. He moves, pulling at his dick just to alleviate the throb.  
  
James stops him, the long, slender fingers of his right hand wrapping around Kendall's while his left spreads flat over Kendall's navel. He pulls him back into his chest and bites against his throat.  
  
"I think," he moves their twined hands, "You need help."  
  
Kendall arches back into James, letting him guide the rhythm of their hands. His skids loose over his cock while James cups it fully, every touch of his skin a flicker of flame that burns all the way down Kendall's thighs. James's teeth are sharp on his throat, but his mouth is wet, messy, commanding. "Gotta do this faster."  
  
One is fucking herself onto Logan's mouth, but it's not enough anymore.  
  
"Use your goddamn fingers again," she demands, cries it straight up to the invisible stars.  
  
"I'll use a goddamn knife next time if you don't shut that pretty little mouth," Logan replies sweetly, lifting his head to showcase his shiny wet lips.  
  
The girl laughs, the sound pained. "Try it and I'll make you eat it."  
  
Logan smirks. He traces his tongue lazily around the pale flesh of her thigh and, in a voice that is too mild for the words he uses, says, "Don't fucking move, Mercedes. I like you this way."  
  
He lets up on one of her thighs, lifts his hand to dip his fingertips inside of her.  
  
"Stop talking," Mercedes gasps, but she keeps her knees obediently spread wide. Logan scissors his fingers inside her and twists, vicious, accentuating it with his tongue.  
  
"He's rough," James comments, imitating the flick of Logan's wrist on Kendall. Kendall moans, and he's no longer covering his mouth, so it is loudloudloud. He doesn't mean it, goes rigid in case the other tributes heard, but Mercedes is falling apart and Logan is growling expletives into her pussy, telling her that she's going to come so hard she'll black out.  
  
James's free fingers clamp tight over Kendall's mouth and he growls into his ear, "It's like you want to get caught."  
  
Nonono Kendall does not want to get caught. He knows instinctively that the Careers won't be appreciative of his spying. Best case scenario, he earns an intimate introduction to Logan's knife.  
  
Despite knowing that, he does not want to stop.  James grinds his hips against Kendall's ass a bit helplessly. His breath is ragged, his hand merciless. He finally lets Kendall disentangle his fingers from the proceedings, and that's even better; just James, pumping hard and quick over his cock. Kendall's nerve endings are lit up like the fireworks they set off during the Capitol's Victory celebrations. He bucks into James's grip, eyes glued to Logan and Mercedes. Logan does something filthy with his mouth, snarls obscenities into Mercedes's skin. Mercedes's body goes tight, and she cries out, destroyed as she clenches down around the whorls and ridges of Logan's knuckles, blissed out in a way that Kendall desperately needs to be. He stands on his tip toes, head back against James's shoulder. He hisses, "Faster," into the calluses of James's skin.  
  
Kendall doesn't know if James can hear it, but he speeds up like he already knows. Maybe he can feel it in the tense of Kendall's muscles. He says, "You can come. I want to watch you." The words send a winged thing fluttering through Kendall's stomach, and he does come; he has no choice but to. Kendall turns his face into James's, nuzzles against his cheek while he spills over their fingers.  
  
They make their great escape from the roof while Mercedes is in the process of putting her clothes back on. Which Logan is pretty indignant about, if his question of, "What, you're not going to return the favor?" is any indication.  
  
Mercedes pats him on the cheek like she might a small child. "Oh, honey, I don't do that. Go talk to one of those coal miner kids. I bet they'd be happy to have a full mouth, for once."  
  
Kendall stumbles over his own feet, tripped up by rage that is too big for his body. James is the one who stops him from faceplanting, with fingers at the crook of Kendall's elbow and a sharp look.  
  
"Bitch," Logan comments idly, wiping his slick, wet lips on the back of his hand.  
  
"What? Don't pretend you don't want their pretty, hungry little mouths on you. I've been fantasizing about it."  
  
"You're insatiable." Logan considers. "The tall one would look good on his knees."  
  
James is the one who falters this time. Kendall fights the inexplicable desire to punch Logan right in his rugged jaw. Mercedes laughs and thumbs over his lower lip, wiping away the last traces of herself. "And the blond looks like he'll beg so nice."  
  
She sighs contentedly. James's grasp on Kendall tightens, possessive. He drags him faster towards the elevator, jabbing the down button violently once they've reached it.  
  
It doesn't help. They can still hear Mercedes. "These Games are going to be so much fun."  
  
"You say that like you're planning on winning."  
  
"I don't need to plan, Logan. I always get what I want."  
  
James punches the button again, muttering, "Come on, come on."  
  
Logan actually pouts. "I'm not going to roll over and play dead for you."  
  
"I don't expect you to." There is wickedness in Mercedes's voice. "When it's just the two of us left in the arena, I hope you'll be... vicious."  
  
She puts an edge in the word _vicious_ that belies her sensuality. Kendall can tell that she isn't lying. She aims to win, and she will not let anyone stop her. Not even this boy who tongued her to climax seconds before. Kendall is abruptly more frightened of her than he is of Logan's quiet confidence. He doesn't think either of them have ever heard of mercy.  
  
The elevator doors slide open just as Mercedes tells Logan, "Until then, I think I'd like to get acquainted with your District partner. What was her name again?"  
  
"Stay away from Camille."  
  
"No can do, Lo-" Mercedes hesitates. "What was that?"  
  
 _That_ was the sound of James shoving Kendall inside the elevator like he didn't have the good sense to walk in without prompting. Kendall glares up at him, but James is too busy scanning his palm to notice. The doors are beginning to close when Kendall sees them; Mercedes and Logan are running straight for the doors. Logan is yelling expletives at the top of his lings, but Mercedes simply grins. She doesn’t look the least bit mad. Or surprised. Kendall does not know if Mercedes can make out his and James's features in the dimly lit elevator, but he doesn't think it matters. He is sure; she knew they were there the whole time.  
  
Kendall is hypnotized by the animal shine of the Capitol lights against Mercedes’s pupils. He nearly misses it when the elevator doors click shut, muted beneath Logan’s terrible shouts. James sags back against the cool, industrial wall of the elevator, relaxing. He lifts his head and says, “Stay away from them.”  
  
Kendall doesn’t exactly need the warning. “No shit.”  
  
James’s eyes narrow. “I’m serious, Kendall. They’re dangerous.”  
  
“You’re acting like I don’t know that.”  
  
“I’m acting like I found you standing on the roof, jerking off to fucking Career pussy. Oh wait, I did.”  
  
There are a million things wrong with that accusation, the first and foremost being that it’s true. He actually creeped on perfect strangers, for the sole purpose of getting off. Kendall has no idea what came over him. It’s like now that the Capitol is catering to his every need, sex is suddenly the biological imperative that’s dominating his senses. He rubs his hands over his eyes, but all he can see is Logan and Mercedes, replaying over and over again.  
  
“It won’t happen again,” he grits out, because he shouldn’t have to account for anything he does to James.  
  
James, who doesn’t believe him. He crowds Kendall up against the elevator wall, pinning him with a hard, fervent kiss. He growls against Kendall’s lips, “I don’t want you anywhere near the Careers.”  
  
Kendall can’t stop himself. The words leave his mouth like a nocked arrow, meant to hurt. “Does that mean you’re not getting on your knees for Logan?”  
  
James jerks back like he’s been burned. “How can you even say that? Don’t you-”  
  
“Don’t I what? I barely fucking know you, James.”  
  
James is pissed. He balls his hands into fists. “So get to know me.”  
  
“Why would I do that? In a few weeks, one of us will be dead,” Kendall spits, and it sounds like everything that’s been festering and rotting inside of him since the second Katie’s name was called at the Reaping. James stares at him, wounded, always so fucking wounded. If words hurt him this much, what is the arena going to do to him? Kendall says, “It’s too late for us to be friends.”  
  
They are on their floor; they have been for minutes on end. The elevator doors gape open into blackness that automatically brightens the moment Kendall’s foot hits the floor. He thinks that he could stay. He could make James feel better, right there, on the elevator, or better, follow him back to his room. He could put his hands all over this boy with the bread, the boy who is much too sweet for everything that they are about to face.  
  
Instead Kendall takes a tip from Mercedes’s book. Carlos is gone and he’s got a good head start on destroying any kind of relationship he could actually have with James. Why ruin that?  
  
From now on, the only person Kendall needs to satisfy is himself.


	5. The Boy On Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ll be my finest creation.”
> 
> "Do I want to be your creation?” Kendall asks, fighting not to open his eyes.
> 
> Dak’s hands still. Simply, he replies, “Yes.”

"Morning, sunshine." Kendall moans as his comforter is ripped clean from his grasp, pale sunlight speckling his calves and thighs. He glares sleepily up at Gustavo, who mostly has the nerve to appear pleased with himself. "You wanted some mentoring, so you're getting some. First lesson, fix your face."  
  
The back of Kendall's eyes throb, painfully, as he tries to roll them. He settles for burrowing into the sanctuary of his pillows. They enfold him in their fluffy, downy arms, beckoning him back to oblivion. He's had less than two hours of sleep, haunted by nightmares of mine explosions, dimpled, knife-wielding Careers, and a version of James who hoarded all of his bread like a miserly king. Sometimes he would peer down from his ciabatta throne and give Kendall this disappointed frown that made him feel like facing down Mercedes with a machete would be infinitely preferable. He'd only just found his way into blissful, dreamless peace when Gustavo barged in all cheerful.   
  
And sober.   
  
He cruelly rips the pillows from beneath Kendall's head and says, "Beddy-bye’s over, dog."   
  
"Go away." Kendall futilely attempts to block out the sun with his arms.   
  
"Nope. Up, up, up."  
  
"Why are you channeling Miss Collins?" He groans into the soft skin of his own underarm.   
  
"Because, silly," and this time it is Miss Collins' perky cadence piercing his ear drums, "It's a big, big day."   
  
"Can't you go harass James first?"   
  
"James," Gustavo announces, "Does not have an unfortunate, you know." He waves his hand in Kendall's general direction.   
  
Kendall sighs. "There's nothing wrong with my face."   
  
"Oh no, dear, Gustavo's right," Miss Collins says, most of her attention occupied by the vase of flowers by Kendall's bedside table. He hadn't even noticed them last night, too busy hating his room, the suites, and the entire Capitol to take any pleasure in the simple white blooms. He thinks they are roses.   
  
"What?" He touches the curve of his cheek. Gustavo smirks. That mostly pisses him off, "This isn't a beauty pageant."   
  
"Oh, but it is." Miss Collins beams.   
  
“No, but. How can Gustavo be right? My face is my face. You can’t fix it.”   
  
Kendall’s only just realizing that his chest is bare. His nipples stand at attention, pink-brown, aureoles ringed by goose bumps. He tries to swipe for the comforter, but Gustavo holds it deftly out of his reach. His scowl deepens.   
  
“There’s always room for improvement,” Miss Collins sing songs, caressing a rose. She sighs, “These are lovely. The president has the nicest garden in Panem.”   
  
“The president?”   
  
“He sends ‘em to all the Tributes.” Gustavo’s expression is that of a man who has stepped in something very unpleasant. “Don’t go getting a big head about it, sweetheart.”   
  
“Right, because that probably wouldn’t help the whole dilemma with my face. Which is?” Kendall prompts. He’s not like, vain, or anything. But he’s also not hideous. The implication that he might be is really offensive.   
  
Cheerily, Miss Collins says, “Oh, that. Right there.”   
  
“…Where?” Kendall pats down his cheeks again, searching for a flaw beneath the surface of his skin. All he feels are dimples and the barest trace of scruff, patchy in its growth.   
  
Miss Collins smiles. She’s utterly serene, way calmer than she was the night prior, which mostly makes Kendall wonder if she drank that bottle of wine she ran off with. She pinches his cheek and chides, “Turn that frown upside down.”   
  
Seriously? Kendall bites the inside of his mouth to keep from spitting nasty words. Miss Collins keeps on tugging at his skin, trying to force a smile. Gustavo says, “You can be as grumpy as you want. On the inside. But if I’m going to go through all the trouble of getting you sponsors, I’m going to need you to be bright and shiny on the outside. That’s how you get people to like you.”   
  
“A smile’s going to get me sponsors?” Kendall asks dubiously.   
  
“It can’t hurt. Glaring at everyone like you wish they would drop dead, on the other hand, isn’t winning you any fans.”  
  
“I haven’t been glaring,” Kendall retorts, which may or may not be true. “I just look like this.”   
  
“That’s a problem. If you value your ass, I’d recommend that you stop looking like that. Immediately.”   
  
“No one likes a surly Tribute,” Miss Collins counsels gently, trying to soften the blow.   
  
“Tonight, at the Tribute Parade, we want you to do this,” Gustavo jabs his index fingers in the corners of his mouth, stretching his lips into a grotesque grin. “Not this.” He proceeds to dip his fingertips down, down, down in a horrible parody of Kendall’s face.   
  
Kendall rubs the bridge of his nose. “Fine.”   
  
“Fine?” Miss Collins and Gustavo echo, skeptical.   
  
“I said fine,” he snaps. “Now could you two maybe leave? I feel like I’d enjoy this conversation more over breakfast. Wearing actual clothes.”   
  
Gustavo shakes his head. “This is what I’m talking about, whelp. You need an attitude adjustment, quick.”   
  
Kendall throws his only remaining pillow straight at his mentor’s face. Gustavo dodges, easy, and ushers Miss Collins out of the room in a haze of thick perfume. Kendall slumps back against his headboard and sulks. Objectively he gets that he has no choice but to play the Capitol’s game. Gustavo’s right. He’s going to need help in the arena, and if he doesn’t dazzle on TV, he’s not going to get any. Dilemma is, Kendall doesn’t want to be a pawn. He is too proud, too arrogant, too convinced of his own righteousness to willingly play along.   
  
But.   
  
He promised Carlos and Katie he’d come back alive.   
  
Plus he’s super fond of his ass.   
  
He reluctantly clambers out of bed, engaging in a brief scuffle with the comforter discarded on his floor before making it to the shower. There, he throws the only protest he’s allowed, soaking in the scalding water for close to thirty minutes while jacking off slow to fragmented images of Carlos, James, Mercedes, and Logan. By the time Kendall dries off, he’s ready to follow whatever instructions Gustavo and Miss Collins give him. He sits through breakfast, obedient, sitting straighter, chin held higher, flashing a smile at thirty second intervals.   
  
“Not so toothy. Unless you want to eat us,” Gustavo says, doing his own fair share of glaring. Noon rolls around with no sign of James, but Kendall does not ask after him. They aren’t friends. He said it, and now he has to commit to it. He focuses on trying on different, less-toothy smiles for his audience. Mostly they seem dismayed by his efforts, although Miss Collins is nicer about it than Gustavo, who cracks open a bottle of liquor on the twelfth go.   
  
An hour later, Gustavo is completely skunked, throwing around insults that make Kendall feel pretty homicidal. He’s saved by his prep team, who whisk him off for another fun round of humiliation and shallow gossip. Most of the manscaping is blissfully over with, but today’s mission seems to involve making Kendall glow.   
  
“Dak’s orders,” Shimmery Jennifer informs him while she cheerfully yanks his hair this way and that. Lavender Jennifer bemoans his stubbly skin. She goes to town with a razor that slices dangerously close to his skin and then slathers him with some kind of special serum that stops hair growth.   
  
“You’ll have a baby face for the arena,” she tells him, like reverting to pre-pubescence is something to take pride in.   
  
Exfoliating is next on her agenda. Kendall squirms beneath her massaging hands while Tattooed Jennifer files Kendall’s nails into perfect ovals. She says, “Your District partner is way easier to handle.”   
  
“You’ve seen James?” Kendall perks up, despite himself.   
  
“Sure,” she drawls, tossing her pin-straight hair over one shoulder. Her dark eyes gleam, amused. “He’s been next door with Aubrey and her team all day. Mostly with Aubrey.”   
  
All three of the girls laugh, a lewd edge to the sound that makes Kendall’s throat constrict. “What do you mean?”   
  
Jennifer’s eyebrows lift into her hairline, her grin Cheshire-sly, but she doesn’t answer. Kendall wrangles his hands from her cool grip. “I have to piss.”   
  
There’s a restroom right there in the prep hall, but Kendall argues for privacy.   
  
“It’s not like we haven’t already seen everything,” Shimmery Jennifer stresses, her cat eyes narrow.   
  
“A man deserves secrets!” Kendall does his best Katie-imitation, stomping his foot and trying to school his expression so that he is very, very stern. The Jennifers agree to leave his side for point five seconds so he can find some relief. Only, peeing is the last thing on Kendall’s mind. There’s a door in the far corner, near the gigantic swimming pool of a bathtub, which leads straight to the adjacent prep room. Kendall didn’t pay it any mind before, but now that he knows James is assuredly in there…it can’t hurt to look. Just to see what the Jennifers were on about. Because what they were implying was dumb. James wouldn’t, would he? Not with some Capitol minion, not when he has so much disdain for the Careers and Miss Collins.   
  
Kendall cracks the door, opening it a millimeter at a time so that it won’t make a noise. He shouldn’t have worried. The room is empty. He makes to close the door when a wet noise grabs his attention. A splash in the bathtub, right around the corner of the doorframe, out of sight.   
  
The room is not empty.   
  
Kendall cranes his head through the gap, careful not to knock the heavy metal door aside. He listens to the whisper of breath, drip of bath oils and water, water that ripples, spreading out from their pale bodies. Aubrey- this must be Aubrey- has curls the color of cinnamon and sloe eyes rimmed dark with kohl. Her face is neutral, analytical as she rocks down against James, lower body obscured by the rainbow sparkle of bubbles. Kendall can’t actually make out much of James, other than the broad span of his naked shoulders, glistening wet, the line of his neck and the damp hair at the nape, bleeding up into more familiar red-brown-gold. He can see the place where James’s slender fingers dig into the jut of Aubrey’s ribs, and he can almost make out the circle of James’s lips, the way he’s totally into this gorgeous girl riding his dick.   
  
Kendall thought that James wouldn’t, but James _is_. More so, he’s enjoying the fuck out of it, from what Kendall can tell. He’s struck by how acutely he does not know his District partner. He does not watch. He has learned his lesson about voyeurism, and this doesn’t turn him on. It makes something sick slither through his stomach; slime that turns sharp every time it touches upon a vital organ. Kendall closes the door with the softest of clicks.   
  
Is James flushed red inside of that girl, slickwetshiny?   
  
Is he harder for her than he got for Kendall?   
  
Whatever. Kendall had the opportunity to get up close and personal with James’s dick, and he didn’t want it. Nothing’s changed. Even if some random stylist has gotten to see what Kendall has only glimpsed in dark, shadowy flashes in the quavering vestibule of a train that moved too fast, so fast, taking him away from everything he’d ever known. He refuses to care.   
  
_Refuses_.   
  
It doesn’t stop him from getting testy when the Jennifers flood back in with their boundless energy. Come sunset and Dak’s arrival, at least one of them has tried to stab Kendall with the business end of a metal nail file.   
  
“It’d be better if you stopped trying to alienate them,” Dak advises, after they’ve gone.   
  
“Easy for you to say.”   
  
“They’re on your side. They want you to win.”   
  
“So they can go to the Victory parties.”   
  
“Maybe.” Dak lifts his shoulders, a casual shrug. “Does it matter why your allies are allies?”   
  
“I guess not,” Kendall decides. It’s not like he’s got enough allies to be choosy, after all.   
  
Dak beams. He pulls Kendall’s Parade costume from where it’s been hanging in an otherwise empty closet, zippered inside a milky sheet of plastic. “Ready to be stunning?”   
  
“I’m ready to look ridiculous.”   
  
Dak’s lips purse with instant reproach. He’s dressed in simple black again, elegant without effort. His hair is artfully disheveled. He’s attractive.   
  
Better looking than Aubrey.   
  
“Sorry,” Kendall apologizes. “Gustavo says I need to stop glaring. I’m working on it.”   
  
“He’s right. At least for now. You’ve got sparks in your eyes.” Dak thumbs over his cheekbone. His smile is cocksure and perfect and he is so very close. “That’ll come in useful at training. You can scare away all the competition.”   
  
“Am I scaring you away?”   
  
Dak’s smile grows. “No.”   
  
Kendall is caught in his magnetic gaze, the gold of his eyeliner making flecks of the same pop in his irises.   
  
“Close your eyes,” he commands, and Kendall does. He’s all about cooperation now. He breathes through his nose, listening to Dak wrestle with the plastic cover. Something heavy and malleable slides over Kendall’s naked ankle, molding instantly to his skin.   
  
“It’s cold,” he hisses.   
  
Dak chuckles and lifts Kendall’s other foot. “It’ll be worth it.”   
  
He does something strange then, skin brushing against Kendall’s instep. It’s only once it’s over that he realizes the touch was from Dak’s lips.   
  
“You’ll be my finest creation.”   
  
"Do I want to be your creation?” Kendall asks, fighting not to open his eyes.   
  
Dak’s hands still. Simply, he replies, “ _Yes_.”   
  
There is so much weight in that single word that Kendall’s can’t help but consider it. He imagines Dak cutting a pattern from his skin, recreating him as a boy who is the black and gold of the sky, perhaps, or a man who trails the white hot sheen of sparks. Dak pulls Kendall’s costume up and over his knees, his fingers pausing over the inside of Kendall’s thighs. “Stand up.”   
  
Kendall rises up out of his industrial, Capitol-issued seat, metal scraping against the tile. Leather sticks to his bare flesh, struggling to hold Kendall in its embrace. Dak’s touch falls away, but he’s close. His breath mists against Kendall’s neck.   
  
“Can I see yet?”   
  
“You’re not even dressed.” Dak laughs, a gust of sweet air tickling the lobe of Kendall's ear. His proximity is disconcerting, unfamiliar. Dak is a stranger, more so than James, who Kendall passed a million times at school or on his way to the Hob or during trades at the bakery. There's a degree of peril here, as Dak inches Kendall's costume up the white of his thighs, vulnerability of such magnitude that Kendall's heart jumps like a jackrabbit beneath his ribs.   
  
The careful path of the District uniform Dak has crafted halts before Kendall's hips, when the supple fabric catches against less compliant parts of his anatomy. Dak attempts to rectify the snag, the heel of his hand sweeping across Kendall's balls. The tiny gasp that leaves Kendall's lips is as clear and melodic as a mockingjay's song. He sways instinctively towards the heat radiating off Dak's body, inhaling deep without meaning to. Dak smells good, spicy, and it sends desire trickling straight down to Kendall's dick.   
  
All he can see is a veil of black with the occasional lightning strike of color behind his eyelids, but Dak is not so inhibited. He notices the half hearted twitch of Kendall's cock. He huffs a laugh. "Problem?"   
  
"Nope," Kendall replies, but it is strangled, invisible hands choking off his windpipe.   
  
"Are you sure?" Dak mostly sounds amused. Pleasantly, he continues, "I'm great at problem solving."   
  
"Is there anything you're not great at?" Kendall inquires, tone jokey. He's trying for civil, but civil is hard to maintain. Storm clouds brew in his head, mortification and lust and a hint of rage churned to a froth. Why does everyone seem to find it so delightful that he can't get a handle on his own hormones?   
  
"Nope," Dak answers, mocking, low. His offer of an assist is too close to James's the night prior, James, who at this exact moment is still probably nailing his stylist a few feet away, past the thick prep room wall. That makes Kendall angrier, rumbles thunder in his stomach.   
  
Kendall can’t stop himself. His eyes flick open, and there’s Dak, his face bathed in shadow, the bone shine of his cheeks and his nose and his brow. "You're going to ruin the surprise."   
  
Kendall glances down. Pooled beneath the insistent weight of his cock, he can make out shiny, black material. A jumpsuit of some kind?   
  
"It doesn't look like coveralls," Kendall says, relieved. He still scans the room for a hard hat.   
  
The corners of Dak's lips hitch up. "Wait 'til you see it on fire."   
  
"On _what_ now?"   
  
"I'm lighting you on fire," Dak says. "Everyone will see what I see."   
  
"Me, dead?" Kendall squeaks, abruptly way less horny. He is not a fan of this idea. At all. In any way, shape, or form.   
  
"Calm down." Dak grabs for Kendall's jaw, directing his attention squarely back on his face. Kendall's pulse jumps, his entire body on edge. The weird lighting of the prep room makes Dak's features glow, carved of light and darkness, like a beautiful statue. He is intense, but earnest. He murmurs, "It's in my best interests to keep you breathing."   
  
"Until the arena," Kendall grouses, distracting himself from the metallic flecks drifting in the midnight sky of Dak's irises. They draw all the illumination from the room, black holes. If Kendall let himself, it would be easy to get lost in their vortex.   
  
"Longer than that, ideally. I'm not going to all the trouble of lighting you up just to see you extinguished," Dak replies levelly. He pauses. The moment stretches between them, a loose thread, waiting for Dak's careful hands to snip it.  "Will you still punch me if I kiss you?"   
  
Kendall bites back, "I thought I wasn't your type."   
  
Even as he says it, he's drawing Dak into him, folding his arms around his neck. He doesn't give himself time to think about all the reasons why he shouldn't. Of all the poor decisions he's made in the past two days, Dak is the most innocuous. He isn't looking for friendship or love, and he's got a vested interest in Kendall's continued survival. The only count against him is his status as a Capitol lackey, but if James can do it, why can't Kendall? Besides, he's lonely and scared and mad and naked and really, really turned on, and the thing about racing heartbeats is that they always race better in pairs.   
  
Dak doesn't have any objections; he sighs contentedly against Kendall's lips as though this is exactly what he's been waiting for. Kendall is cautious at first, not as used to being the aggressor as he would like, but not even close to willing to back down. He doesn’t have to do much to coax Dak’s lips open, to convince him to kiss back. Dak treats Kendall like he’s already on fire, like he has an ember burning in the pit of his stomach that he would like to douse. He swallows down Kendall’s moans whole, invading his personal space, not even the least bit embarrassed about it.   
  
Kendall stumbles, back, back, back, tangled in the half of the black unitard rucked around his thighs. Of all the places he has been in the Capitol so far, this is the most sterile. All the surfaces other than the chair are hard, unforgiving. It’s no wonder James and Aubrey chose the bathtub to fuck in. Dak crowds Kendall against one of the Jennifer’s prep tables, scattered with makeup brushes and sharp instruments that clatter all over the floor, a symphonic accompaniment to the way their hips hitch together with slow, painful friction.   
  
Kendall is naked where it counts while Dak is all buttoned up and that’s not fair at all. When Dak mutters, “Unzip my pants,” he’s quick to obey, fingers on the front fastening while Dak peppers kisses that melt like snowflakes against the skin of Kendall’s throat. Kendall arches into the shape of Dak’s lips, pulsing warmth. Dak isn’t wearing a stitch beneath his slacks. He is warm and hot and very, very visible in the circle of Kendall’s fingers, standing at attention with ease. He’s longer than Carlos, but not as thick, and comparisons have no place here anyway. Kendall tries moving his hand, quick and easy.   
  
Dak says, “It’ll work easier like this.”   
  
He brings his fingers to his mouth, pushing past his own lips and sucking each digit in turn. Kendall draws in a ragged breath, watching as Dak’s skin is coated wet, glistening beneath the fluorescent white light. Half cast in shadows and gold, he reaches down between them and holds Kendall fast, grip sure. He draws his fingers across the stretch of Kendall’s cock, the slickness making his palm skid easily over the shaft. Dak steps even closer, fitting his own thigh between Kendall’s, touching their dicks together.   
  
“We could fuck,” Kendall offers, even though he likes the idea of getting off like this, between the rigid metal of the Jennifer’s prep table and the unrelenting heat of Dak’s body.   
  
“Not enough time,” Dak mumbles back, already reclaiming Kendall’s lips. He pushes his cock into Kendall’s hand, so that he has them both, pressed from base to head all flushed and needy. Kendall tries to jerk them both off, but it’s hard, too much, and not enough space. Dak is kissing Kendall deep, skillful, and all Kendall can do in return is inhale deep, as if he’s trying to craft a Dak shaped lung inside his own body. He pushes up into Dak’s grip, kneading his free hand against Dak’s ass, tugging him closer. Dak fucks up into the hole of Kendall's hand and hits the sparse hair of his belly because they're just practically connected, which, yes. Good. Kendall maneuvers himself so that he's stroking Dak but mostly rutting himself against the shape of his own knuckles, the head of Dak's dick, and the indent of his hipbone. He hasn't gotten off like this since he and Carlos first started fooling around, too scared to stick their fingers into unknown territory, too urgent to do anything individually.   
  
He licks along the shape of Dak's lips, the rugged line of his jaw, the shell of his ear. Dak grunts and bites out at Kendall, catching the corner of his mouth. Lipping against skin, Dak grips Kendall's biceps for better traction, and mostly it makes Kendall think this would run smoother sans his clumsy fingers. He extricates his hand, damp with saliva and precum, from the equation and there. _Perfect_.   
  
Dak's skin drags against his, lighting up all his nerve endings. Kendall leans his head on his shoulder, grinding their lower bodies together againagainagain. He wants a better range of motion, wants Dak to shed his obnoxiously elegant shirt and to strip off the costume bunched between his knees.   
  
"Can you get off like this?" Dak asks, breath fast, voice measured.   
  
"H'yeah," Kendall nips at the pale triangle of collar bone in from of him, and he doesn't sound even close to put together. "Can you?"   
  
Kendall expects him to say no, expects him to say something about getting all worked up with nowhere to go, but instead Dak slides the thick of his cock against Kendall's a few times and gasps, "Yes."    
  
His balls are tight, squeezing painful, and Dak is sexy, ruined, pink lips gaping open and closed as he works himself against Kendall. The crevasse of heat between his thigh and his dick and his hipbone is damp with sweat and precum, and he kisses Kendall again honey-slow and sloppy.   
  
“Next time,” he says against Kendall’s mouth, low and husky, “Next time I want to fuck you. I want to see how good you take it.”   
  
“Who says there’s going to be a next time?” Kendall shoots back, but now the sun burns beneath his skin, turning him hot and needy. He peers between them to catch sight of the twinned heads of their dicks, moving without rhyme or reason, sliding slow and making his head dizzy with stars. He could turn around right now and let Dak slip inside him, let him go deep. His body tenses up imagining Dak’s thickness, the wet red infiltrating where only Carlos has ever touched.   
  
Kendall is close, teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to fall into black and gold sky. When he comes out the other side, he’ll be rendered new, metamorphosed into a boy no one will recognize.   
  
Dak directs Kendall's dick towards his perfectly starched black shirt. "Come on me," he pants, losing composure, finally falling apart. "Don't want any of it on the suit."  
  
Kendall isn’t sure why that’s what gets him, the idea of mussing up the pristine picture of Dak’s shirt, painting watercolor stripes of cum across starched black. He has quicksilver in the pit of his stomach that grows brighter and more volatile with the frantic rut of Dak’s hips against his.   
  
Dak’s hands grip bruises like exotic blossoms into Kendall’s biceps, his teeth scraping rough over Kendall’s lower lip. Their breathing is ragged, not at all harmonious, and Kendall’s skin pricks with light. He comes babbling expletives into the corner of Dak’s mouth, bad words that reverberate through the other boy-man’s throat and tremors through his stomach.   
  
Dak slides through the frieze of clear-white Kendall created on his clothes, caught between rough fabric and slick skin, and when he lets go it has mostly rubbed off on Kendall’s skin. He tries to catch what he can in his hands, but it seeps between the curve of flesh connecting his fingers, trickles down the flex of his wrist and drips onto the fabric bunched at his knees.   
  
“Shit,” Dak curses lowly. “I didn’t mean to – we should get you dressed.”   
  
A mask of brisk professionalism slides into place, and Kendall can’t help but find it absurd with Dak’s dick still pressed up against his, soft and warm. He manages to keep his thoughts to himself, sliding his sensitive cock against Dak’s once just to feel him shiver before he leans fully back against the Jennifers’ prep tray.   
  
Their skin sticks at separation, the pull a little painful. Kendall says, “About that setting me on fire thing…”  
  
“I won’t let you burn,” Dak murmurs, his eyes big and earnest. He strokes the inside of Kendall’s forearm. “Trust.”  
  
Kendall barely manages a nod. Trust is not a thing he is great at, but he’ll try. He wants to try. It’s exhausting seeing everyone as an enemy, and he believes that Dak really does want him to keep on breathing, if only because he is convinced that Kendall can be his masterpiece.   
  
Relieved, Dak lets go. Not just of Kendall, but altogether, dismissing the sex drenched air and the uncertainty stretched between them and the whole damn prep room. He is lost in his own vibrant world of imagination, stranded in a far off horizon where Kendall really is a boy who can burn.   
  
Dak wasn’t lying about Kendall’s need to get suited up. While they were occupied, time wore the robin’s egg blue from the sky to reveal the graphite gray beneath. Night is closing its claw around the Capitol as Dak walks Kendall to the loading bay, where twelve chariots lie ominously in wait. Through the gaping maw of the training center’s bay doors, Kendall can see daylight’s last stand. Every time clouds pass overhead, they cast a visible shadow on the mountainside. It’s bizarre, being able to see their passage on the ground and in the sky.   
  
“Are you ready?” Dak asks as they approach District Twelve’s chariot. James is already there, clothed in an identical tar black suit. Aubrey hovers near his elbow, and Kendall swallows back something sharp, but it settles behind his breastbone and refuses to leave.   
  
Dak couldn’t get his jumpsuit completely clean; there is still dried cum sticking to the inside of Kendall’s thighs. So what right, exactly, does he have to sharp feelings where James is concerned? He swallows again and tells Dak, “Not even a little bit.”   
  
All the same, he lets Dak guide him into the chariot’s bed. He doesn’t bother greeting James, but the slight goes unnoticed. Dak and Aubrey have distracted them both with torches of – what Dak assures them is – synthetic fire. Kendall cringes when the torch touches down, certain he’s about to burn to a crisp for all of Panem to see. This trust thing is hard.   
  
But not impossible, because Dak, true to his word, does not let him burn. The flames do little more than tickle. James stares at his own arms in awe, while Kendall is more distracted by the way the fire highlights the dramatic charcoal makeup on James’s face. He’d almost forgotten that the Jennifers put some on him, too. The whole time he was with Dak, was he equally as demonic, like a creature of power and fury?   
  
He turns to Dak, whose smirk flickers with the shadows, mimicking the torch and the suits. Dak mouths, “Beautiful,” and in his head Kendall interprets it as, _I told you so_.   
  
As they were preparing, the Tribute Parade had already begun, first One in dazzling costumes made of semiprecious stones, Mercedes and her District partner wearing diamond-hard smiles. Then Two, Logan and his partner – Camille, was it? – decked out in gold battle armor, shining and brilliant. They are greeted with cheers so loud and rowdy that Kendall wants to shrink in on himself. How many people are out there, slavering like dogs, wishing all of them dead?   
  
Kendall misses Three when the coal-coated horses pulling his chariot whinny and snort, beginning to trot, but he catches a last glimpse of Four, the female Tribute with seashells strung through her hair. Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten go in quick succession, and the next thing Kendall knows, the chariot in front of him is racing away.   
  
“Try not to smile,” Dak warns.   
  
The chariot lurches beneath Kendall’s feet. The cheering grows closer. He says, “Not a problem,” because smiling is the last thing he feels like doing.   
  
As they emerge into the night, James finally asks, “What’s wrong with your hair?”  
  
Kendall has no idea. It’s not until they’re out in the open, broadcast on the giant screens placed across the circle that he can see what James means. He looks like a dark, wild thing. He looks ravished.  
  
And he is on fire.   
  
Kendall has never felt particularly strong without a bow in hand, but now he radiates raw force, and more. He can see Dak’s handprints all over his body, glowing beneath the flames and the body suit.  
  
He wonders if James can too.  
  
Kendall holds his head up, proud, defiant, and it is only then that he hears the hush that has fallen over the Capitol crowd. There is a silence so deep and profound that it makes Kendall’s ears ring. Strange faces, strange colors, strange mouths all blur between horror and rapture.   
  
“I think they think we’re really on fire,” James hisses, a muscle in his jaw jumping. Kendall isn’t looking at him, but he can see it on one of the giant TVs. “Hold my hand,” James orders, fingers already tangling with Kendall’s. The body suits only extend to mid wrist, and James’s hand is warm, callused, his long fingers familiar in a way they should not be after so little time.   
  
His touch stirs up a tornado in Kendall’s stomach, makes a place behind his collarbone feel ember-warm.   
  
“What, why?” Kendall attempts to pull back. James won’t let him. He raises their twined fingers straight up in the air, a never before seen show of solidarity that has the added bonus of proving neither of them are being flambéed from the outside in.   
  
The Capitol eats it up, shock evolving to pure delight and then applause so thunderous that it is a roar; it shakes the concrete and spooks the horses into speeding their pace.   
  
Kendall tugs futilely at his hand. “You’re not going to let go, are you?”   
  
“Nope,” James replies cheerfully, squeezing. “C’mon, Knight. Glare at all of our adoring fans.”   
  
So Kendall does, because this is what is expected of him. He shall give Panem a show before he dies, and this Tribute Parade will go down in history, in legend; no one will forget the boys from District Twelve, the boys who were on fire. 


End file.
